Tuesday, 6th July 2021: The Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, says the demand by southern governors for the South to produce the next President in 2023 is a welcome development.

Afenifere, however, said its immediate priority is restructuring and not the 2023 polls.

The leader of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said this during a chat with CEOAFRICA on Monday.

When asked if his group believes that the South should produce the next President, Adebanjo said, “I support it 100 per cent.”

But when asked if Afenifere would be pressing for a South-West President, the 93-year-old statesman said, “We are not supporting any election until Nigeria is restructured.

We are not going to support any Presidential candidate under this constitution. We must change this constitution first.”

On why Afenifere was not taking part in the current constitutional amendment handled by the National Assembly, Adebanjo said, “They are beneficiaries of fraud. The 9th Assembly is part of the problem so how can they solve it? You can see how the National Assembly messed up the amendment of the Electoral Act. Are they the ones you expect to bring change?”

In a related development, the pan-Northern socio-political organization, Arewa Consultative Forum, said on Monday that there was nothing wrong asking for that presidency from their region.

The National Publicity Secretary of the ACF, Mr Emmanuel Yawe, told one of our correspondents in a chat in Kaduna that the Nigeria’s constitution granted Nigerians the rights to speech, freedom as well as freedom to vote.

The ACF’s spokesman said, “The Nigerian governors from North  and South have been acting as pressure groups since 1999 when democracy returned.

“The constitution grants them the freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom to vote their preferred candidates.”

Earlier, Yawe spoke to another correspondent saying, “When a candidate emerges on the platform of a party, we will then interact with that candidate and find out from him what plans he has for the north. But we cannot say a political party must choose a candidate from North or South.”