By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Eighteen years after the 2003 general election in which five governors elected on the platform of the now defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) lost power in their reelection bid to candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the leader of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said he has no pity for them.
AD was one of the political parties that ushered in the Fourth Republic in 1999 and was driven mainly by leaders of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural association, Afenifere.
The party produced all the six Southwest governors in the 1999 elections but General Olusegun Obasanjo, who hails from Ogun State, was elected president on the PDP platform.
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But in the 2003 elections, the goverors of Ogun State (Segun Osoba), Ekiti State (Niyi Adebayo), Oyo State (Lam Adesina), Osun State (Bisi Akande) and Ondo State (Adebayo Adefarati) lost the election after entering into an agreement with Obasanjo.
The only Southwest governor who survived the political blitzkrieg was the then governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu.
But Adebanjo said he has no pity for Osoba and his colleagues.
Adebanjo who spoke on Tuesday morning on Arise Television said Osoba and his colleagues were victims of their own betrayal of the principle of truth.
Calling the former governors traitors, he accused them of being sell-outs who paid a price for their treachery.
Said he: “It is as a result of their betrayal. Osoba and the rest made an agreement with Obasanjo behind us to despise the leaders of Afenifere because we were claiming that we were responsible for their election. And they wanted to say that they can win election without us.
“So, they made a deal behind us with Obasanjo and at the end of the day, Obasanjo kicked them out. They got the result of treachery. They were thinking that the man will keep to his word and they will claim to have won election without the support of leaders of Afenifere. That was what took them to that disaster.
“So, it is a business between them and Obasanjo and not between them and Afenifere because it was an act of betrayal. They thought that they could get rid of the leaders of Afenifere and can then claim to have won election on their own.
“And Obasanjo tricked them. That was why, after the election, Osoba was interviewed and he said ‘Oh! Obasanjo betrayed an agreement.’ What does he mean betraying an agreement? What agreement did they make with him?
“So, it is an act of betrayal. They wanted to be in power willy-nilly at the expense of philosophy, principle and at the expense of the truth and at the expense of the interest of the Yoruba people. And they are getting the result.
“Even the alliance which they said they are having with President Muhammadu Buhari now which is causing trouble, how can you imagine someone who is a product of the Awolowo philosophy having an alliance with somebody like Buhari?
“And I described them at that time as a collection of incompatibles. So Afenifere has no business with them at all. It is Osoba and others who had a parley with Obasanjo. I don’t know anything about it. It is their business.
“It was not a free and fair election. Obasanjo tricked them and sent them out of office but because they were not loyal to the leadership of Afenifere, they didn’t follow in our footsteps. They were following their own. But Tinubu was smart. He saw ahead but Osoba thought that he could get on with Obasanjo. It is a question I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to be involved in their own controversy now because I have my own views about the whole thing. they sold themselves to him (Obasanjo) and they reaped the result of their disloyalty to the party. That is my conclusion.”