The Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), on Sunday, declared that the Yoruba nation is ready to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari come 2023.
The body called on prominent Yoruba leaders in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to urgently address the unwarranted division among its ranks and ensure that the southwest region clinches the presidential ticket of the party in 2023.
“ARG has met and we have concluded that the Yoruba nation is ready to lead Nigeria. We have a blueprint that we can present to any presidential candidate that can bring better democratic governance to all Nigerians.
“The southwest is ready to take over. We have human and material resources. The political leaders must go on consultations. We have six geopolitical zones, southwest is just a block.
“They must move for a united family to clamour for the presidency for the southwest and produce a unified front. If they can speak with one voice, we will clinch this ticket, because it is our turn,” Vanguard quoted the ARG Publicity Secretary in Ekiti, Prince Michael Ogungbemi, to have said.
The ARG said the APC National leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, party’s pioneer Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, and the Chairman, Nigeria’s Governors Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi, should deploy their strategic positions to unite the zone and clinch the presidential ticket that may likely be zoned to the South in APC.
The group also advocated for what it called “classical restructuring” of the country that would correct the highly entrenched lopsidedness in all zones and ethnic groups in phases.
He said, “We can’t go into that race with a divided house. Tinubu, Fayemi, Akande, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Prof Banji Akintoye, Senator Femi Okurounmu, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, Chief Afe Babalola(SAN) and others must convey a meeting of the progressive politicians in the zone so that we can be United. If we have a candidate that is acceptable to both the North and the South, we will surely win.
“But Yoruba nation will blame Tinubu, Fayemi and Akande if the southwest fails to clinch the ticket. Nigeria needs to be restructured, but what we need is classical restructuring, it might not be holistic for now. With restructuring, governance in the state will be healthier and more benefiting; the running of the states will be healthier.
“Governance under the presidential system is very powerful and costly, but with power residing in the states and local governments, things will be better. We must have a roundtable referendum to achieve this. It is not to satisfy certain groups, it will bring geometric progressive order because we have not been moving at the right pace”.
