How Obasanjo Conned Afenifere, AD Governors – Bisi Akande, AC Chairman
Interview May 22, 2010
Chief Bisi Akande
Says;  *Atiku’s exit is a relief
*Afenifere leaders were dishonest
* AC just beginning its own  merger talks

When you conduct an interview with an angry former state governor who was “conned” by a former President of Nigeria, a fellow Yoruba, what do you expect?
Bisi Akande, the former Osun State governor between 1999 and 2003 on the platform of an atrophying Alliance for Democracy, AD, but who today is National Chairman of the Action Congress, AC, can talk. But how do you stop a man who continues to provide invaluable never-before-heard information?
In this interview, Akande discloses, for the first time, how former President Olusegun Obasanjo dragged the leadership of the Yoruba body, Afenifere, including the late Chief Abraham Adesanya, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Chief Olanihun Ajayi, to the floor of comic gymnastics only to leave them for dead.  Obasanjo not only outwitted them, he conned them out of five state governorships (Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo), leaving only Lagos State, for obvious political and commonsensical reasons.  But that was not all Akande spoke about:  He talked about the recent failed mega party moves and says the AC was never a part of the earlier merger talks. For him, the exit of Vice President Atiku Abubakar from the AC to his original Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is a big relief. Besides, he talks on the perceived offence of the late Chief Bola Ige and his assassination; how the case was eventually bungled and who to hold responsible; the crisis in Lagos State between Governor Raji Fashola and his legislative arm; how Bola Tinubu survived Obasanjo’s onslaught of 2003 and many more.  Take a sampler of what Obasanjo did to Afenifere leaders: “Obasanjo refused to sit down.  He greased their ego.  Obasanjo said ‘I can not sit and talk to Papa Abraham Adesanya; I must stand up; I must respect him.”
And when Obasanjo started showing signs of repudiating the agreement he had with Afenifere, the leaders went back and got this:
“We went to invite the Awujale of Ijebuland, we went to invite Bishop Gbonigi, we went to invite Bishop Ladigbolu and asked some of us who are leaders to meet with Obasanjo and we met with Obasanjo again.
“Obasanjo who said he would not sit down to talk to Papa Abraham Adesanya was unfazed this time around.  He simply laid down there on his couch, sleeping, and he was no longer going to compromise”. Excerpts:

By Jide Ajani , Deputy Editor, & Anthonia Onwuka

Your political party, the Action Congress, AC, seems confused.  You were recently reported to be involved  in merger talks with the possibility of coming out with a mega party but suddenly some of the leading lights in your party jumped ship and decided to move on, what happened?
It is not right to say that my political party, the AC, was involved in merger talks with other political parties.  And if that would be true, it would just be true within the last one week.

I don’t agree.  It was public knowledge and the talks had been on for months but there was no denial regarding the reports in the media that a mega party was in the making with the involvement of AC?
Let me explain. It was a group of people, politicians, they called themselves mega, who invited us to come on board and we told them that we were not interested.  The reason is that we do not believe that any other political party in this country is more mega than the AC.  So, we never answered them.

Then came another group of people who called themselves National Democratic Movement, NDM.  They wrote a letter to me.

The letter was signed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, General Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa.  The three of them signed the letter which they sent to me and tried to invite my interest in what they said they were doing.

Honestly, my reaction was that I should take this letter to my party since I am the chairman; and I did go.  I called the elders of my party and I read the letter to them, explaining that this is a letter I got from a body called NDM, and I asked ‘what do I do with this letter’.


Akande
My party said the letter was addressed to you and it is your own business, don’t involve us in it.  As leader of the party, I wouldn’t be expected to and I wouldn’t attend such a meeting.  However, some members of my party were attending the meetings of the group, not because my party believed in the merger, you know, but some members of my party which included, at that time, Turaki Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu, Usman Bugaje, Tom Ikimi, Ben Obi and may be one or two others, were attending the meetings of the NDM.

We were waiting for them to come back with ideas of whatever they think we should do. But what we decided when we went to our party was that whatever ideas these people bring back to us, our party would not change its own name and it would not change its own logo because we of the AC do not believe that any other party is going to be more mega, if there, indeed, is going to be any mega, than the AC. We even felt the word mega sounds arrogant and it started with the PDP and it led them to make so many mistakes and we don’t want to belong to that type of thing. So, we went back to our National Executive Committee, NEC, and agreed that we would not dispense with our name and we would not dispense with our logo.