2019: Why Afenifere is backing Obasanjo, by Adebanjo

The leadership of Afenifere, Yoruba’s mainstream socio-cultural group, has attributed its resolve to work with former President Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the 2019 presidential election, to “the need to rescue Nigeria at this critical moment”.
Obasanjo recently paid the nonagenarian chairman of the group, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, a courtesy visit in his Akure country-home in Ondo State, where he sought for the support of Afenifere on his mission “to reposition the
country.”
The Octogenarian ex-President’s request reportedly received the nod of the Afenifere leader, who expressed the belief that the country must be saved from the myriad of problems confronting it under this administration.
Speaking with our correspondent in an interview, one of the leaders of the group, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, explained that the group agreed to work with Obasanjo based on the fact that both parties were on the same page “on the need to rescue the country at this critical moment”.
Adebanjo said Afenifere was not supporting Obasanjo per se but that the group was only pursuing its own goal of unseating the incumbent government which it believed had done more harm than good to the country.
“Nobody is saying that Afenifere is supporting Obasanjo. For what? The man (Fashoranti) says he is supporting Obasanjo to get rid of Buhari, not that he is supporting Obasanjo. To say Afenifere is supporting Obasanjo to get rid of Buhari doesn’t mean he is supporting Obasanjo. He is supporting the purpose which shares the same belief with Afenifere that Buhari is running a bad government. We must always consider the message and the messenger,” he clarified
Adebanjo, also a nonagenarian, noted that the group was one of the organisations that had for long pronounced Buhari’s government as bad and would be willing to do whatever it could muster, to get rid of the government, “even if it takes working with our opponents”.
“There is a difference between the two. We are one of the few persons that say the government is bad and must be sent off. While we are saying so, Obasanjo is also saying so that he has not performed well. Obasanjo went to the leader of Afenifere to get whatever that is needed to get rid of Buhari and we agree. No individual is being supported here. Do not put it as if anyone is being supported. The point must be clear; we are supporting the motion and not the individual,” Adebanjo stressed.