From Bamigbola Gbolagunte, Akure
Yoruba nation activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known Sunday Igboho, yesterday, told President Bola Tinubu to call Vice President Kashim Shettima to order over what he termed unwarranted attacks on Kemi Badenoch.
Shettima had chided Badenoch for making some scathing comments on corruption in Nigeria, proclaiming her indigenous Yoruba identity and refusal to be lumped with Northern Nigeria.
However, in a press statement personally signed, Igboho urged Tinubu to caution Shettima against launching verbal attacks on the leader of the British Conservative Party for emphasising her true identity as a member of Yoruba ethnic group and expressing her view on corruption, which is the bane of development in the country.
“It is incumbent for President Bola Tinubu, who is also from Yoruba ethnic nationality and lineage to direct Shettima to face his duties as vice president rather than dissipate energy or engage in verbal war against Badenoch, who merely expressed her candid but true opinion on the pervasive corruption in the Nigeria’s system.
“When the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari was in power, nobody dared launch offensive or verbal attacks against his Fulani ethnic nationalities without being dealt with or muzzled through the instrumentality of the state or paid the supreme price.
“It is on record that because of my agitation against wanton destruction of farmlands in the South West and other parts of the country, killing of farmers and mindless sexual violations of their daughters, and wives by rampaging Fulani herders, which characterised Buhari’s administration, security agents on his order, stormed my residence on July 1, 2021, gruesomely shot dead two persons and arrested about 13 others.
“Majority of Nigerians are currently being subjected to harrowing experience, excruciating poverty due to harsh economic policies and bugged down by kidnapping and other forms of insecurity, but the Federal Government is still groping in the dark finding solutions. Instead of deploring measures to mitigate the suffering of the masses and frontally tackle the nation’s challenges, Vice President Kashim Shettima is busy taking on Badenoch.
“When has it become a sin for someone to express his or her opinion or say the obvious about how corruption has retarded the growth of Nigeria as a nation or proclaiming her true identity as a member of Yoruba ethnic divide. The Vice President should concentrate his energy on the performance of his duties rather than chasing shadow through his invectives on Kemi Badenoch.
“It is high time President Bola Tinubu called Shettima to order now to desist from needless verbal attacks and face his duties as the vice president of the country,” Igboho stated.