The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has been accused of betraying Chief Bola Ige.
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A member of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Senator Femi Okunrounmu, made the allegation.
Okunrounmu alleged that Tinubu worked surreptitiously to ensure that Ige did not emerge winner of the primary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
Okunrounmu, has said that contrary to what has been in public domain it was actually the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu who spearheaded the plot to deny the late Chief Bola Ige his presidential ambition.
Okunrounmu in an interview with The Guardian alleged that Tinubu worked surreptitiously to ensure that Ige did not emerge winner of the primary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) because of his (Tinubu) ambition.
He said that there were several reasons for Ige to have won the primary, especially as Pa Abraham Adesanya’s deputy, who took part in appointing members of the electoral college.
According to him, all Ige needed was only two votes from the nine elders “because once you get 1–2 votes out of 23, you have won.
He continued: “The elders included Alayande, who was a commissioner under Ige. Another was Adewale Thompson, who was the Attorney General under Ige. So, if he only got those two, he would have won. This is exclusive of people like Odebiyi and Ayo Fasanmi, who were very close to Ige.
“This is why I said it was a surprise to me that Ige lost, which also gives the lie to these governors (AD governors) saying they supported Ige. Many of them did not vote for Ige, because from my analysis, if they had voted for him, he wouldn’t have lost.
“I happened to know and it was widely rumoured then that Bola Tinubu distributed money to some of them to vote against Ige because of his (Tinubu) ambition. He had this overriding ambition to become the Yoruba leader and he felt the person in his way was Ige. He wanted to more or less suppress Ige; he didn’t want him to emerge as presidential candidate. Tinubu worked against Ige.”
When asked on the persistent clamour for the country’s restructuring and the way it appears a difficult task, Okunrounmu said the “1999 Constitution is deliberately programmed against the south.” His words: “It is programmed against restructuring and against anything that will bring justice and equity between the north and the south. “The successive military leaders through whom the 1999 Constitution came about deliberately programmed it to give the north permanent advantage over the south.
“So, working by the 1999 Constitution, anything the north does not want cannot be achieved in the country. Therefore, if you say we must go through the same constitution, then we have accepted our servit*de to the north. Until we change it, there cannot be justice and equity.” Meanwhile, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, elder statesman and one of the leaders of Afenifere, has dared the Federal Government to arrest him over his statement that he would not recognise President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the 2019 presidential election until proven by the courts.
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