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Yoruba May Present Another Presidential Candidate In 2007
From Abiodun Fagbemi STRATEGIES to be adopted by the various ethnic nationalities for the 2007 political dispensation may have started to unfold as the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) gets set to present a presidential aspirant.
However, the YCE vowed to ensure that none of the six geo-political zones is left out in the presidential race.
Indication to this effect emerged at the weekend as a founding member of the group, Alhaji Suleiman Salawu, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Ilorin, declared that "the post of presidency is open to all Nigerians. The President could come from any zone in Nigeria. Even another Yoruba man will vie for the slot after Obasanjo. You remember that the zoning formula had been buried and forgotten in the last presidential election when many aspirants outside the South-west zone contested against Obasanjo. But the YCE would ensure that all the six geo-political zones field candidates for the post, come 2007 election," he said.
Salawu, who was a Third Republic Senator and chairman of Kwara State YCE, said the Yoruba nation belongs to two of the six geo-political zones (south-west and north central) in the country. He argued that Obasanjo is from the South-west and could not therefore be a true representation of the Yoruba slot.
He added: "the South-west has not exhausted its slot and even the Yoruba as a nation. Therefore, nothing can stop Yoruba from contesting in the 2007 presidential election".
Speaking on the press war between President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka over the murder of ex-Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, the YCE leader justified Soyinka's position, describing it as "a healthy development" for the nation's democracy.
Salawu, while urging the duo to forget their differences over Ige's death, said that the YCE would ensure that justice was done on Ige's murder as it passed a vote of confidence on the judiciary's ability to unveil the assassins.
However sources told The Guardian that the conflict resolution team within the YCE might have been contacted towards an amicable resolution of the rift.
On whether the YCE would support former Head of State, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) if he vied for the presidency in the year 2007, Salawu said the YCE considered the alleged ignoble role the ex-Nigerian leader played as the nation's Head of State but would not discourage its members from voting for him.
Reminiscing, he said, "the wave of corruption started rearing its ugly head during his eight years in office. He was one of the architects of the premature death of the Third Republic. "But today, going by his recent utterances and movement around the country, he seems to have been remorseful. So, if he tries his luck and he wins, it means Nigerians have forgiven him.
"If the people needs his service, we need to pray and support him because the consequences will be upon the generality of Nigerians," he added.
I am utterly speechless. Are we not all agreed on the need to rotate the presidency? And does common sense not dictate that the South-East deserve the 2007 slot?. As a Yoruba, i am wont to dismiss this as a joke taken too far. This is surely the height of insensitivity. Another unfortunate effect of bad neighborliness.
quote: There is nothing wrong with being a Nigerian, absolutely nothing. But there is everything wrong with being a Nigerian under the present circumstances...OOjukwu
********* Admin Edited ********** Per member's request, this message has been edited by the Administrator to correct formatting error.
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The content of the present thread appears to be a crude version of the thoughts that Chiboy expressed in this topic. We are looking here at Obasanjo's charlatanism and infantile attempt to perpetuate himself in power. If he cannot tamper with the constitution as Chiboy has noted, then Obasanjo wants another crooked way to return to Aso Rock in 2007. Hence, all this silly comments about the end of the zoning arrangements.
As the saying goes, whom the gods want to kill, they first make mad. It is a shame that Aremu entered Aso Rock as a stupid man. Now, his remains will be scraped from the walls of Aso Rock a mad man.
[ August 10, 2003, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Onyemaechi ]
Posts: 127 | Registered: Mar 2001
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You only have to take a look at how many Hausas are already parading to know there is absolutely nothing wrong with Yoruba or Igbo fielding several candidates of their own.
Nowhere was it enshrined that Presidential slot would rotate to all the zones equally despite the suggestion of "the patriots" and the well intentioned efforts of Abubakar prior to Obasanjo's sElection in 1999.
This is why T Anenihs "no vacancy in Aso rock" comment demonstrated to many that the so-called "Nascent democracy" was just a pipe dream, and why the jump to sieze such an opportunity at the expense of all they had previously expressed to stand for (during the dark days of Abacha) by most of Aremu's tribesmen, only demonstrated a shortsighted abandonement of the pursuit of a lasting structure, in favor of the temporal gain of expedient political prominence.
Tunji Adenodi's constant mantra at Gamji.com was the contorted opinion that if Igbos support Aremu for a second term under the understanding of such unenshrined "theory of rotation" (which Aremu had already decided to violate in a second term bid as revealed to him by none other than God), Yoruba would therefore reciprocate such a gesture to prolong Southern percieved hegemony for sometime to come.
At about that time Addy happened onto BNW preaching exactly the same thing. Now it is time to gloat and tell us that had we been listening, Yoruba Politicians would not now be angling to cast their nets into the deep waters of the Nigerian political firmament.
I suppose in this thread Addy is gloatingly taunting and cajoling, fishing for our response for which he believes he already has a ready response.
I will offer mine:
Let it happen O Addy, according to your greatest aspirations. As we make our bed, so we all lie on it.
PS: In the meantime, how did you get the page to read like it is currently doing? This may prevent input, so please see if you can edit to correct the layout, or consult with the Administartor for help in doing so.
___________________ YA CAIN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN :) Posts: 1182 | From: TEXAS | Registered: Oct 2001
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UkaObasi, Let me start by acknowledging, with great understanding so to speak, your frustrations with the Nigerian system vis-a-vis the imbalances in the polity. Ain't we all? But for the sake of everything you hold dear, DO NOT TRIVIALISE THE ISSUE AT HAND.. I am not doing this in order to court anybody's trust. I only believe that "Whomsoever believe that he is too small to make a difference is yet to sleep in bed with a mosquito". We have tried antagonism and name-calling for about 30 years now, it won't hurt so much to adopt a different strategy considering how we have fared so far both as individual units and as a whole. Despite my misgivings towards Odumegu Ojukwu, i have come to admire a trait in him: respect towards an opponent even at the height of his passion. Here is a man who have seen it all (literally and figuratively), refraining from frontally attacking a whole race for the sins of a few. We all have one or two things to learn from this. As Idowu Ogbo rightly pointed out in a previous thread, when the time comes to go our separate ways in Nigeria, we will still have to sit down together and discuss the modalities. UkaObasi, it will bode us all well if you stop reading meanings to my posts lest the real meaning be lost to reviewers. Thank you while you graciously refrain.
quote: : In the meantime, how did you get the page to read like it is currently doing? This may prevent input, so please see if you can edit to correct the layout, or consult with the Administartor for help in doing so.
I have contacted the administrator about the problem and i await his action on the matter.
___________________ This war of attrition on the Igbo must end now! Posts: 441 | From: california, US | Registered: Jan 2003
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I am happy you have made a turn-around regarding Dim Ojukwu, even though he is now no longer a threat to a possible Aremu election victory in the East what with massive rigging for insurance.
Correction is hereby taken regarding giving you the benefit of the doubt.
You are absolutely right especially in that Mosquito proverb of yours. I hope you also apply it sincerely because past insincerities is what ultimately makes us put up our defenses, expecting nothing, neither sincerity, nor welcome, nor participation, nor breath, nor warmth, nor acceptance, nor understanding, nor consideration, nor fairness nor survivability from a Nation which would neither accomodate our existense, nor let us go our own way.
My frustrations are real. My parents were recently visited and attacked by armed robbers along with nephews and nieces who had gone to visit them. Much was stolen from them including and especially even visas. Injuries were inflicted, but fortunately for us, no lives were lost.
My father is in his seventies and my mother in her late sixties and recovering from several health conditions treated on her last visit here with us. This is the second armed robbery incursion into our home in three years.
Who will protect them? shall they go back to the East? now made ungovernable by those who have chosen to promote conscious unruliness no different from what Abacha did, or shall they move to America to live here under our attention?, they would climb the walls with boredom and homesickness. Shall I pack up with my family and move back to that cesspool to begin to re-establish in a political and economic climate whose participants doggedly claim "One Nigeria" but perpetuate the greatest acts of hypocrisy, destabilization, outright hatred visited with government power and engineering, corruption, and decay?.
My brother, my criticisms are real because the pain is real. I even now begin to feel sorry for your "Nigeria" who like an ilegitimate child, did not ask to be brought into this world to suffer, but who its users continue to prop up in pretence even as they destroy it and as it cries out in miserable agony: WHY?
Have you listened to its cries lately my brother? or have you become oblivious in your theories about its manifest "oneness"?
Great is its pain, and it can only be alleviated by putting it out of its misery, dismantling it in totality and building out of its ashes our respective Nations starting all over again with some modicum of Sanity.
Let this be its redeeming sacrifice which we must all pledge to make. only this will I believe till my dying breath.
Now back to your request; Should you find me responding differently and cynically to your post within or without context from now, Then let it be to my shame and reproach unless I am given course to have to respond otherwise.
___________________ YA CAIN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN :) Posts: 1182 | From: TEXAS | Registered: Oct 2001
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This is not intended as Yoruba Bashing but the truth bashing.
The truth is that there are no more chiefs in Yoruba as dumb as Obasanjo. For them to rule again, they have to be naturally dumb, as that is the quota system the nation has carved out for them. Flash back to Akintola, Abiola, and Awolowo...not as dumb as Obasanjo.
Hail Biafra
[ August 10, 2003, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: Waypoint1Biafra ]
Posts: 1673 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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