2023 Election and Yoruba Principle of ‘Aro and Odofin’ || Inaolaji Olayode
PanNigerianNews
3 min read
I want to direct this piece to the Yoruba with a view to enlightening them on whom to cast their votes for in 2023, at least so that unprecedented development will greet the nation as a whole.
In Nigeria, the acclaimed giant of Africa, the 2023 presidential election is fast approaching. It remains less than a year now. The question of who will become the lucky helmsman in the presidential race had filled the air. It is a known fact that only Great Architect of the Universe can provide answer to that burning question.
The two prominent political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (AOC) – have conducted thier primary elections to elect their flagbearers in the coming presidential race.
The PDP produced Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a northerner and Muslim. The analysis of PDP primary election is thus: out of 774 delegates, 767 delegates were accredited. Alhaji Abubakar Atiku polled 371 votes, Gov. Nyesom Ezenwo Wike polled 237 votes and Senator Bukola Saraki polled 70 votes while 12 votes were void.
Those first third candidates in the primary election for the presidential ticket of the APC are Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Mr Rotimi Amaechi and Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
Asiwaju Tinubu had 1,271 votes; Mr Amaechi had 316 votes and Prof. Osinbajo had 265 votes. With this mathematics, the national leader of the party, Tinubu is the winner.
The ball is now in the court of the political panjandrum, the erstwhile governor of Lagos State and how it will be played is best known to him.
In reality, the trending video clip about what Tinubu said really convinced. He said: “Yorùbá ló kàn” (it is the turn of the Yoruba to be president).
His statements against President Mohammadu Buhari has raised concerns. With the plight of the country, a brave Yoruba man is needed to paddle the canoe of this country to the promise land.
Tinubu has a vast knowledge about the politics of Nigeria. No wonder he emerged the two-term governor of Lagos State which sired unprecedented development to the state. According to his revelation in the recently released video clip, he made Buhari president in the 2015 presidential election. This shows his political weight. I envisage Tinubu has grand mission for the entire Nigeria, to say the crystal fact. The popular Yorùbá saying “Omo eni kò ní se ìdí bèbèrè ká fi ìlèkè sí ìdí elò míràn” should drive us to turn blind eye to what he may has done wrong in the past, if any.
The administration of Buhari has bequeathed unconstitutional immunity to the Fulanis. The fulani herdsmen have wreaked many havocs especially in the South-West. The heardsmen are just callously abducting people on daily basis; they have no regard for the Constitution. How long shall we continue to endure this quagmire? They have placed the ‘cows’ above the law and feel supreme above other tribes.
Consequently, it is high time the Yorubas cogitated. The popular aphorism of Yorùbá about ‘Aro’ and ‘Odofin’, to think deeply, should be a guide for us.
I’m not writing this article to castigate Buhari’s government but to open the ears of the Yoruba to certain things that may bring positivities to us as a nation, even owing to the fact by 2023, the will have ended an eight year tenure.
Olayode writes from Ogbomoso.
