Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum (YRLF), a socio-political organization in the country’s south-west, has backed the country’s south-east to produce the country’s next president.
According to the group, the Igbos are ripe for the country’s top leadership position, and any move by any area to snare it might plunge the country deeper into political turmoil, potentially igniting a civil war if caution is not exercised.
InsightnaijaTV reports that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State, has expressed interest in becoming Nigeria’s next president.
He made his interest known after a recent visit to the Aso Rock Villa by President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, in response to Tinubu’s ambition, YRLF stated that the National Leader of the All Progressive Congress, APC, is within his rights as a citizen to run for the presidency in 2023.
The Yoruba faction, on the other hand, claims that any tribe other than the South-interest East’s in the presidency could bring disturbance and imbalance in the country’s political realm.
In a statement released on Tuesday, YRLF President Akin Malaolu said the forum will not be duped into supporting any presidential candidate who is not an Igbo man.
Tinubu’s presidency in 2023, according to Malaolu, will be a troublesome trip.
YRLF stated further that “it sees Tinubu’s visit to the President as a troublemaking misstep purposely to create an impact that may unbalance the present drivers of the party, the progressive governors’ forum and enlarge the fault lines already visible and to midwife a division within.”
The statement added: “This attitude is uncalled for, particularly from any democrat that is worthy of being a member of an association and at a time the nation is looking for peace.”
The forum, which describes itself as leaders of thought in the south-west, said it had taken stock of conditions in the country’s diversity and that their findings convinced them that the fate of Nigeria’s vast people and ethnic nationalities could only be improved if Nigerians rotated the presidency amongst themselves.
YRLF urged political leaders, mainly in the south, not to play the “traitor role,” emphasizing that it had committed to supporting Igbo presidency in 2023 and that there was no turning back.
