By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Newly inaugurated President General of Yoruba Council of Elders, (YCE), Chief Ajibade Oyekan on Thursday, declared that the body is not ready to endorse any Presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections in the country.
Addressing journalists in Ibadan after his inauguration as the new council’s President General, Chief Oyekan said ” we are non partisan organisation; we don’t talk about politics here and that has held us together”.
“I had said, we are non partisan organisation; we don’t talk about politics here and that has held us together, bound us together since all these years. We didn’t really discuss who to vote for, but the body language of the entire members tell me that we should look inwards since we have a Yoruba man there”, he said
Chief Oyekan added, ” Please get me right, we are not, as a group, endorsing a particular individual, because once you do that, you are just mocking yourself, because members are going to the polling booth to vote individually with their own conscience”
Speaking further, the new YCE President General maintained that majority of Yoruba people will vote for the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the 2023 election
Emphasizing that although YCE has not endorsed any particular candidate, he stressed. there are indications that Asiwaju Tinubu would get the votes of many of the Yoruba’s especially in the Southwest, as the body language of majority of members of the group has shown that they will vote for Asiwaju Tinubu in the election
” I can see that people will vote for their own kinsman. So, majority of our members, without discussing, without agreeing on any particular candidate will vote for Tinubu. Majority of our members are for him. Our own body language just tells us that majority of our people are going to vote for Tinubu,” .
Expressing the Yoruba Council of Elders displeasure with the Nigeria rise in debt profile, Chief Oyekan said. ” we as Yoruba Council of Elders, frown at the crippling debt burden on Nigeria now; this will seriously stifle our future economic development”.
“We are in support of the establishment of state police in Nigerians. The staggering rate reported daily needs dramatic social and governmental attention. The daily influx of unskilled youths into our cities also calls for concern; what will they turn to in the future? While they go back to where the came from? Many questions beg for answers in Nigeria”.
