The Lagos Airport hotel, Ikeja will on Thursday, 19th, play host to the final in the series of the Southwest post -confab summit convened by the Ondo state Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko.
Yoruba leaders and interests groups in the Southwest have been meeting on the need for the re-election of the convener of the 2014 National Conference, President Goodluck Jonathan, to enable the implementation of the recommendations of the confab as promised by the President.
According to a statement issued by the commissioner for Information in Ondo state, Hon. Kayode Akinmade, the summit which has been scheduled to commence by 10 am will have in attendance, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Supo Shonibare, Chief Reuben Fashoranti, Chief Olu Falae, Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo (rtd) Dr Frederick Fasehun, Chief Gani Adams, Prof. Modupe Olatubosun as well as interest groups in the Southwest, to deliberate on how to ensure the implementations of the confab report believed to be the solution to the challenges facing the Nigeria nation.
Among the groups expected at the summit apart from the Yoruba elders from the region, include the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Yoruba Youth Movements among others.
The first in the Post-confab series held in Akure, the capital city of Ondo state with the second edition holding at the Premier hotel Ibadan.
Youths in the southwest also met in Akure recently as part of the series to deliberate on their role in the implementation of the report of the 2014 national confab.
At each of the summit, participants endorsed the candidature of the Peoples Democratic Party and convener of the 2014 confab, President Jonathan for the 2015 Presidential election.
They hinged the endorsement on the belief that the President who has promised to implement the report of the confab within the first 12 months in office if re-elected will fulfill the promise..
The southwest leaders, various interest groups and youths who have participated in the previously held summit also established in their various communique that the only solution to the challenges confronting the Nigeria nation is the implementation of the confab report which they also maintained could only be implemented with President Goodluck Jonathan as President, because the opposition party Alliance Progressive Congress(APC) and its leaders vehemently opposed the convocation of the confab and boycotted it as well.
The confab has been adjudged to be the most successful of such held in the country with over 600 resolutions passed by general consensus.
At the Ibadan summit Chief Olu Falae, who led the South-West delegation to the conference, observed that it achieved many gains for the Yoruba nation, including the possibility of creating railway lines, community and state police, and re-integrating the Yoruba people of Kwara and Kogi with their kith and kin in the South-West, among others.
“ Our interest as Yoruba must be to get out of political and economic jail. We are not saying that Jonathan is perfect; nobody is perfect. We are consistent, principled and no blackmail can make us to change our position.”the one time presidential candidate said.
Falae’s position was endorsed at the Ibadan summit by Yinka Odumakin who related the efforts made to arrive at the confab report, saying that it held the key to Nigeria’s progress. His position was endorsed by the representatives of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and the National Youth Council of Nigeria.
The convener of the summit, Dr Mimiko, noted that it was a pan-Yoruba forum with people of different political tendencies in attendance. Mimiko said the Yoruba were very strong in canvassing for the implementation of the resolutions of the 2014 confab because it would guarantee a return to that system where the Yoruba forefathers proved their mettle to the rest of the world as brilliant administrators of men and resources. He declared that “For us as Yoruba, no system is as potent enough to bring out the best in us as true federalism, a re-structured Nigeria where power is devolved and a land where our people would have power over the resources at their backyards”
