The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has warned against what it perceives as plans by some “self-appointed” leaders of the North “to blackmail” President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and prematurely return the presidency to their region.
Issuing the warning in a press statement this week by its General Secretary, Comrade Bunmi Fasehun, the Yoruba socio-cultural group emphasised that such an anti-Tinubu scheme contradicted and jeopardised the spirit of unity and rotational presidency.
The group was responding to recent moves by former All Progressives Congress (APC) Kaduna State’s governor Nasir El-Rufai to rally a coalition to checkmate Tinubu in the 2027 election.
Fasehun said: “Embittered souls now calling for Asiwaju’s premature ouster should take note of the rotational principle that the entire country embraced and which has made government inclusive and equitable since 1999. That principle must not be endangered for the selfish interest of political adventurists like Hameed Baba-Ahmed and Nasir El-Rufai.
“OPC’s 10-million-strong members and sympathisers cannot fold their arms and look the other way when such vituperations threaten Nigeria’s collective welfare and peace. In order to check these bitter and self-appointed sectional gladiators in their satanic mission to blackmail President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, OPC is forced to embark on this publicity intervention.”
The group reminded Tinubu’s antagonists of how he aided former President Muhammadu Buhari, from the North, to win two tenures as Nigeria’s elected leader for eight years.
OPC said: “No one can obliterate the historical role that Asiwaju played in returning the presidency to the North in 2015 by working against a sitting President from the South. For the first time in Nigerian history, an opposition party won a presidential election. It was a mission impossible that God used Tinubu to make possible with his stratagem, connections and resources through the primaries to the general elections in 2015 and in 2019. This facilitated the election and reelection of General Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner, as Nigeria’s President.
“Evidently, Tinubu mobilised his South-West to vote massively for Buhari in both elections.”
Extolling the President’s democratic credentials, the OPC General Secretary said Tinubu remained the only Fourth Republic elected leader to emerge from the trenches.
Fasehun wrote: “Like OPC and our Founder, the Late Dr. Frederick Fasehun, Tinubu played a formidable role in NADECO, the ultimate vehicle for our country’s democratic struggle, both at home and abroad. Like Nelson Mandela, Tinubu is the first Nigerian President in this Fourth Republic to emerge from the trenches of the struggle against military rule. None of his Fourth Republic predecessors can boast of that fabulous democratic credential.”
Although acknowledging that Nigerians today grappled with socio-economic challenges under the current regime, OPC called for patience.
It said: “People must remember that Tinubu inherited the current security and economic challenges; and the lingering situation must be weighed against the backdrop of the fact that the regime has been in the saddle for ONLY two years. We must be patient.”
According to OPC, rather than his traducers and antagonists, only the electorate should be allowed to decide Tinubu’s fate come 2027.
It said: “We bookmark recent statements by self-appointed sectional leaders suggesting President Tinubu would not win a second term come 2027. Unlike these anti-Tinubu rebels and naysayers, we believe that President Tinubu’s leadership, vision and commitment to Nigeria’s progress naturally position him as the ideal candidate for the job.
“The Constitution guarantees President Tinubu two terms (Sections 135 and 137). No vested interest, no matter how powerful, will be allowed to rob him of that constitutional right. Let the electorate decide.”
OPC also urged El-Rufai to clarify his statement that Tinubu would be eliminated the same way former President Goodluck Jonathan was done in 2015.
“Is he planning Season 2 of the Chibok girls kidnapping? Or will he achieve his satanic objective via the importation of more terrorists from Sahelian Africa to further escalate the brigandage and killings happening in Plateau, Benue, Southern Kaduna (that he governed for eight bloody years) and other sections? Or are these malcontents saying heavily-armed Fulani terrorists in camps scattered everywhere in the South are only waiting for their whistle to make the country ungovernable under Tinubu? The security agencies should be interested in El-Rufai’s response,” the organisation submitted.
OPC urged patriotic Northerners to disown “the self-serving, belligerent and blood-thirsty El-Rufais and Baba-Ahmeds within their fold” through rewarding Tinubu’s past allegiance to the region by voting him again because “one good turn deserves another.”
COMRADE BUNMI FASEHUN
OPC GENERAL SECRETARY
