Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday scrapped the office of acting leader.
Pa Ayo Adebanjo was last year named acting leader by Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.
The decision to scrap the position was made at its first general meeting of the year, held at the Akure home of Pa Fasoranti.
Fasoranti declared that the office of acting leader was no longer in existence.
The motion to scrap the office was moved by Dr. Samuel Ibikunle.
He said: “You know Afenifere had been having problems, not just this one we are talking about. We all know that there is another group, which calls itself Renewal Afenifere Group. So those people had been there. But we don’t hear much about them again, we always hear of our own Afenifere.
“But in recent times, there have been some issues that wanted to divide us, the acting leader of Afenifere, Chief Adebanjo, who was put there by Chief Fasoranti.
“And there are some issues then that who’s supposed to be the next President of Nigeria and of course the real Afenifere, when we considered everything, we felt that support should be given to Bola Tinubu and our acting leader, Adebanjo, decided that they are going to support someone else. Many of us didn’t support that position because Tinubu is a Yoruba man, and we felt that Tinubu’s ideas will help the country to move forward.”
“So we took the position that this man would be the next President. The type of leadership Afenifere deserves all the time was disappearing if you remember the time of Chief Awolowo, Ajasin and Adesanya. Those were the people who conducted the affairs of Afenifere and they listened to everybody.
“Now we want to go back to where we should be, the type of leadership we are used to under the leadership of Baba Awolowo, Ajasin and Adesanya. Now, the motion I moved is more of saying that let’s go back to where we belong, let’s go back to the way we used to do things in Afenifere, let’s go back to the ‘Omoluabi’ way of settling issues, which affected Yoruba race.”
Dare Babarinsa said: “You’re speculating whether it will bring crisis or not. But I will like to say that in this particular issue, the position of acting leader was created by Baba Fasoranti and in his wisdom he has chosen a leader, Chief Adebanjo and therefore he believed that that era should be concluded and I believe Baba has taken the right decision and it was Baba Fasoranti that appointed Kabiesi Olaitan as deputy leader.”