By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
The Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, has announced burial plans for its departed leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo.
A communiqué from the apex Yoruba socio-cultural group, signed by its Acting National Leader, His Royal Highness Oba Oladipo Olaitan, and National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, after a national caucus meeting held on Tuesday at the late Pa Adebanjo’s residence in Isanya Ogbo, Ogun State, stressed that, in conjunction with the deceased’s family, a national burial committee, and other stakeholders, the burial processes will take place on 30th April, 3rd, and 4th May 2025.
As part of the burial arrangements, Afenifere will hold a symposium in honour of its departed leader at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, on 10th April 2025, commemorating his 97th birthday.
On the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State by President Bola Tinubu, the group recalled that “the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), comprising compatriots in Afenifere, Middle Belt Leaders Forum, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and PANDEF, issued a statement on the 19th March 2025 condemning unequivocally as unconstitutional the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State, including the dissolution of the State House of Assembly and the removal from office of the elected Governor of the State, Siminalayi Fubara, and his deputy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and called on the President to reverse same.
“The SMBLF stated categorically that there is no provision in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, including section 305 (5), which allows the Federal Government to take over the government of any of the federating states, not even Section 11 (4) to which section 305 which gives the National Assembly powers in extreme and specified circumstances to make such laws for the peace and good government of a state with respect to matters on which a House of Assembly may make laws.
“In the assurance of the consciousness of its and inherent constitutional powers to check the excesses of the Executive, the National Assembly was called upon to countermand the despotic and ominous order of the President sacking democratically elected administration in preference of a military Administrator to take charge of the affairs of a constituent state of the Federation in a proclamation reminiscent of our unenviable not too distant past.”
Afenifere rued that, contrary to the expectations of Nigerians but in a manner consistent with its proven character, the 10th Assembly in both Chambers not only joined hands with the President in further desecrating the tenuous 1999 Constitution but also demonstrated a lack of courage to defend the democratic rights of the people of Nigeria.
The group argued that “in clear terms the provision of the constitution requiring the concurrence of the 2/3 majority of the members of the National Assembly on any matter, is in the absence of a national referendum, a call for legislative plebiscite in determining the issue concerned which must be demonstrated without equivocation.”
Afenifere condemned the resort to a voice vote by the National Assembly, insisting that it obscured compliance with the constitution on the required number to deal with such a matter of monumental national importance as the Presidential reversal of the electoral decision of the people of Rivers. It described the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State as “an ill-wind that blows the nation no good and spit on the faces of Nigerians.”