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Pa Ayo Adebanjo, a chieftain of the pan Yoruba socio-political organisation Afenifere, has claimed that President Bola Tinubu and his colleague governors in the South West failed Nigerians when the country returned to democratic rule in 1999 because they were too frightened to demand a people's constitution.
Tinubu was the Governor of Lagos between 1999 and 2007, and his then-party, Alliance for Democracy (AD), produced governors in the five other South West states in 1999.
However, the AD dominance was broken in 2003 as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took all the South West states in the governorship elections except Lagos.
Now, Adebanjo is of the opinion that Tinubu and his colleagues in 1999 fluffed an opportunity to give Nigeria a people-centred constitution at the dawn of the fourth republic.
The elder statesman declared this while speaking as a guest on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, aired on Channels Television on Friday, March 15, 2024.
According to the nonagenarian, the President and other South West governors at the time “chickened out” from demanding a Sovereign National Conference after the then-military Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, decided to return the country to democracy after the death of ex-military dictator Sani Abacha.
However, he noted that Tinubu has now been presented with a golden opportunity to rewrite the mistakes of the past by ensuring that Nigerians decided on a constitution they agree to govern their coexistence as against the “military-imposed constitution” in operation.
Adebanjo expressed conviction that a brand-new people-centred constitution will end some existential problems in the country, especially the ravaging insecurity.
“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,” he said in retrospect.
He stressed that Afenifere opted not to partake in the deliberations with the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime but later agreed to take part in the 1999 election after getting assurances that there would be a Sovereign National Conference thereafter.
“So, we contested that election on protest.
“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 the 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,” he stated
According to Adebanjo, 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.
“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.”