THERE is a harrowing story told by
Adekoya Boladale, which needs to be
brought to the attention of Nigerians,
especially the people of the South-West.
In the middle of the night of 4th January,
1984, heavily armed men of the Strike
Force of the Nigerian army invaded the
Lagos home of Chief Olu Awotesu, the
Minister of State for Agriculture. This
military operation had one design, to put
the minister under arrest.
However, Chief Awotesu was not at home,
having gone to his home-town in Iperu,
Ogun State. On meeting his absence, the
soldiers descended on his family. His wife
was dragged from the bedroom upstairs
through the staircase to the ground floor,
where she was kicked and beaten by the
men in khaki. Her assailants laughed at
her while she screamed and begged for
mercy. The children were not spared
either. They were also slapped and
tortured in the bid to determine the
precise whereabouts of their father. This
ordeal apparently went on for over three
hours. When Chief Awotesu returned
from Iperu to Lagos and learnt that he
was now a wanted man, he drove straight
to Dodan Barracks, then the seat of
government in Nigeria, to give himself up.
He was not only arrested, he was detained
without trial for nearly two years. It was
while in detention that he learnt about the
ordeal his family had been put through by
men of the Special Forces. Chief Awotesu
was only released in 1985, even though the
government found no evidence of any
crime against him.
South-West is not for sale
The man responsible for this injustice is
Muhammadu Buhari. He is now running
for president and wants our votes.
Paradoxically, a number of the kinsmen of
the late Chief Awotesu are now charged
with selling his candidacy to us in the
South-West; and yet Buhari himself has
never found it necessary to apologise to us
for the human rights violations his regime
inflicted on us. A unique opportunity was
given to him by the institution of the
Truth and Reconciliation panel under
Justice Chukwudifu Oputa in 1999.
However, Buhari showed his contempt for
us by refusing to appear before the panel.
Why then should people in the South-
West give this same man their votes in
2015?
The fault is not Buhari’s. The fault is that
of those now charged with white-washing
his image. These people are obviously
contemptuous of their Yoruba kith and
kin. They have told Buhari that all he
needs is a bit of cosmetic surgery. He
should change from wearing an agbada to
wearing a suit. He should choose a
Christian Yoruba pastor as his running
mate, and even attend a thanksgiving
service in Lagos where he pretends to sing
Christian praise songs. He should then
mouth a few inane words about “change”
and “anti-corruption” and all will be
forgotten.
Somebody is being fooled but it is not the
Yorubas. It does not matter how many
curious onlookers are paid to come to
Buhari’s campaign rallies in the South-
West; the Yorubas will ultimately not
succumb to this hogwash. Buhari has been
rejected in the South-West three times.
He will be rejected yet again. Out of over
4.7 million votes cast in the six states of
the South West in 2011, Buhari could only
get 321,609. That is less than seven
percent. Nevertheless, some Yoruba
bigwigs in the APC have gone ahead to
strike a deal with Buhari on the grounds
that they will deliver the South West to
him in the coming election. It is not going
to happen.
In the first place, who made these men
spokesmen for the South-West? Who
mortgaged South-West Yoruba interests
to the political ambitions of Bola Tinubu
and his associates? As a matter of fact, the
2015 presidential election provides a
unique opportunity for the people of the
South-West to break off the political
shackles of Bola Tinubu by rejecting his
new-found ally of Muhammadu Buhari. If
for no other reason than the refusal of the
Yorubas to be sold into slavery, Buhari
must be rejected outright in the South-
West and the APC must be kicked out of
Lagos State.
With all the noise currently being made
about Buhari’s candidacy, one important
point is often overlooked: Buhari is not
even well-liked by his own people. A lot is
made of the 12 million votes he obtained
from the North in 2011, conveniently
forgetting that Goodluck Jonathan also
obtained a sizeable eight million votes
from the same North. Indeed, in 2011,
Goodluck Jonathan won 428,392 votes in
Buhari’s home-state of Katsina; to
Buhari’s 1,163,919. That means Jonathan
won 37% of the votes in Buhari’s
backyard. Compare that to the situation in
Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa.
Jonathan won 584,811 votes; while Buhari
obtained a miserable 691 votes. That gives
Buhari a measly 0.11% of Jonathan’s votes.
It is also instructive that in the primary
election for the APC presidential
candidate, Northern delagates did not
vote for Buhari. Instead, they gave their
votes to Kano State governor, Rabiu
Kwankwaso, and former vice-president
Atiku Abubakar. Delegates from Buhari’s
North-West voted for Kwankwaso, while
those from the North-East voted for
Atiku. Buhari’s votes came primarily from
the South-West, as well as from the
South-East and the South-South.
However, in 2011, out of over 38 million
votes cast in the entire country, Buhari
could only obtain 391,933 from the entire
South-West, South-East and the South-
South put together; that is 1.03% of the
votes.
In short, Buhari was imposed on the
North as the APC presidential candidate
by delegates controlled by Tinubu. It was
out of gratitude for this that Buhari gave
Tinubu the sole responsibility for
choosing his vice-presidential running-
mate. Tinubu’s first instinct, of course,
was to reserve the vice-presidency for
himself. But the political pressures against
a Muslim/Muslim APC ticket, led him to
concede it to his political surrogate,
Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
Buhari’s crimes
It is contemptuous of Tinubu and his
Yoruba acolytes in APC to presume that
they can deliver the South-West to Buhari
in the 2015 presidential election, in spite
of Buhari’s antecedents. Of all the people
they could form an alliance with, Buhari is
by far the least acceptable to the Yorubas.
In over 30 years of being a fixture of
Nigerian politics, Buhari has been
decidedly and unapologetically anti-
Yorubas and anti-South-West. It is a
matter of public record that Buhari has
never done anything for us. On the
contrary; he has done so many things
against us.
When he assumed power in 1984, he
established a 16 member Supreme
Military Council (SMC) to rule the
country. In spite of the fact that the
Yorubas are the largest ethnic group in
the country; larger according to every
statistical index than the Hausas and the
Fulanis; Buhari could only find room for
one solitary token Yoruba man: Brigadier
Ola Oni. Buhari’s SMC had 11 Northerners
to 5 Southerners.
Buhari locked up South-West politicians
like Bisi Onabanjo and Michael Ajasin
even though no case was found against
them. Even after they were discharged and
acquitted by the kangaroo courts he set
up, he still kept them locked up and
refused to release them. He pressured a
judge to jail Fela Anikulapo Kuti for
failing to declare foreign –exchange he
had legitimately procured for the up-keep
of his band on a foreign trip, while
allowing the Emir of Gwandu to smuggle
back into the country 53 suitcases during
the currency-change exercise.
He did not just brutalise Chief Awotesu
and his family. He did the same to Tai
Solarin, who was denied medication for
his asthmatic condition while in Buhari’s
gulag; Ayo Oyewumi, who became blind in
Buhari’s detention; and Busari Adelakun,
who died of chronic ulcer, complications
developed in Buhari’s jail. Buhari even
seized Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s passport
for no just cause, and thereby denied the
old man visits to his doctors at Mayo
Clinic, Rochester Minnesota, USA during
the years when he ruled Nigeria.
He frustrated Lagos’ attempt to build a
metro-rail system and, as PTF chairman,
he discriminated blatantly against the
South-West. It is pathetic that, rather
than insist he should apologise for these
and other infractions, the Yoruba
politicians that have decided to pitch their
tent with Buhari are now trying to pull the
wool over our eyes by trying to give him a
cosmetic political makeover. It is just not
going to wash.

By

Femi Aribisala.

www.vanguardngr.com/2015/01/time-disgrace-self-appointed-godfather-south-west/

Hmmmm

You reap what you sow. . .and sow what you reap abi?
Karma sweet o!

*At least, he did not kill Bola Ige abi?*

T

Mumulistic post- u better comot d chewing gum wey dey ur eyes. The crowd wey u see for Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Jos etc dem be ur younger brothers? Ode oshi

Youths don't be carried away by the buzz word, change. It is not coming from APC or PDP. Look closely at the make up of APC. It is made up of PDP defectors who couldn't get a slot to recontest on PDP. How they suddenly became progressive baffles me. For me it is called desperation. The change we need neutrality because APC is equal to PDP.

Eleyi gidi gan.. This one is very strong.

They say what has been read cannot be unread. How history comes back to kick one in the butt amazes me.

So it is gej's govt that has no yoruba man in its major post we should vote for, pls dnt promote tribalism. Go out and vote for the best candidate be it hausa,igbo or yoruba. Anyway SAI BUHARI