A former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress and former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, has praised the leadership and members of the Yoruba Ronu Group, YRG, who paid him a visit at his country home in Ila-Orogun, Osun State, for their selfless devotion to the cause of the Yoruba race.
Chief Akande noted the effort of the group during the last APC primary as a worthy contribution to the exercise, having used their financial and human resources to entrench the unity of the Yoruba race.
Chief Akande, particularly, commended the group’s call for the Yoruba aspirants in the presidential race to come together and support one of their own to ensure the presidency did not elude the South West.
Also, the elder statesman intimated the group of some of the plans of Asiwaju Tinubu as itemised in his campaign strategy, aimed at wining the coming election, as laudable.
Therefore, he urged members of the Group to continue to play active role in the campaign towards the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president in 2023.
He said, though, the APC national organ would now be in charge of the Asiwaju campaign train, yet he enjoined the Yoruba Ronu Group to not stop to play pivotal roles to complement the effort of the party in South West as their messages were likely to resonate more at the grassroots bearing in mind that they would employ the Yoruba Language in the drive.
In his response, Prince Diran Iyantan, the Coordinator of Yoruba Ronu Group, YRG, who led other members of the group on the visit, said his group was not relenting in its effort with increasing significance as it moved towards to the 2023 presidential election till the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s next President next year.
He said the Group was to set up contact offices across the six South West states and embark on a massive mobilization drive for Asiwaju Tinubu to win with very significant margin in the South West.
Furthermore, he reeled out the plans and programmes of action of the group to Chief Bisi Akande, the former chairman of the party.
Prince Diran Iyantan, while noting the effort of Chief Bisi Akande and other elders of the Yoruba ethnic extraction to have initiated a meeting of some Yoruba leaders to meet with APC aspirants of Yoruba extraction behind closed doors as a good move, submitted that the elders under the leadership of the host defended the unity of purpose of the Yorubas very well.
“The incendiary comments in the media about the race and some aspirants could become combustible in due time to set the South West aflame was scary. Things went worse as certain political demagogues made references to the past history of political quagmire in the region as capable of repeating itself- a dangerous dialectics.
“It was Chief Akande and other Yoruba elders’ swift intervention that curbed the erosion of such negative thought and evolved the appropriate antidote to it that saved the region and indeed our dear nation the occurrence of another civil strife the type that have occurred in the past,” he said.
Prince Diran Iyantan eulogized Chief Akande’s great act of statesmanship and service to the nation for dousing the tension that could have gained traction and caused a political upheaval in the country as he called on all the aspirants to stick to issues of development and unity of the country in their campaign itineraries instead.
Steve Otaloro
Director of Communications
Yoruba Ronu Group
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