Elder Stateman and Afenifere chieftain, Pa Ayo Adebanjo has revealed how South West Governors elected on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) were instructed to boycott the Federal Government over its refusal to convene a sovereign national conference.
Afenifere, a Pan-Yoruba sociopolitical organisation serves as the parent body for the Alliance for Democracy at the return of democracy and advent of the fourth republic in 1999.
The nonagenarian revealed when he featured as a guest on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande which was aired on Channels Television on Friday.
Giving the reason why the the organization asked the governors to take such action capable of destabilizing the polity at that time, Adebanjo said the directive was given to the Governors in order to drive home their demand for a sovereign national conference and a new constitution which the federal government at that time refused.
This motive of this directive was the core of the Alliance for Democracy’s campaign across the country.
He said, “There was a clamour for a Sovereign National Conference at that time (in the buildup to the 1999 election). The military said they were going back to the barracks and we said, ‘Well, go back to the barracks with your constitution; it’s your baggage and return us to where you met us. If you are not going to do that, schedule another conference and we will agree on how to live together.”
Speaking further, the retired lawyer said, “This is why I disagreed with Ex-Governors (Bisi) Akande and (Segun) Osoba. When we were campaigning for them to be governors, it was on the heels of federalism, and Sovereign National Conference.
“We insisted that the constitution must be changed. So, when we (Alliance for Democracy) came in, we got the mandate of the people; we won the election in the whole of the Western Region, we told all our governors including Bola Tinubu not to go to Abuja until the Federal Government changed the constitution but they chickened out; they were involved in the paraphernalia of office… that is the beginning of the struggle of Nigeria.”
On what the effect of the boycott would have looked like assuming the Governors had heed to the directive, Adebanjo said, “If the Western Region didn’t take part in any of the activities in Abuja, the Eastern Region will follow us and we will all be forced to come back to the table again.
“They (South-West governors) chickened out, they sold the Nigerian people, they disappointed us. And that is why I said the wrong at that time, Bola Tinubu is in a position to rewrite it now by changing the constitution now to what we wanted it to be. And it is not a long thing to do; take the 2014 National Conference Report, take the (ex-Governor Nasir) El-Rufai Constitution Recommendation of the APC, set up a committee to reconcile the recommendations and we will move on.”
“All the six state assemblies in the South-West at that time passed a resolution for a Sovereign National Conference but all our governors disappointed us” Adebanjo noted expressing his disappointment on the actions of the governors.
