'Support IBB at Your Own Risk'
National Council of Yoruba Youths (NCYY) at the weekend warned that any monarch or leader of thought in the South West who supports the presidential ambition of General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) for 2007 does so at his own risk.
The group also said the support allegedly given to the former Military President by a section of the family of the late M.K.O. Abiola is of no value as it cannot translate to any electoral fortune for him either in the South West or in Nigeria generally.
The group, in a statement signed by Kola Adejumobi, Chairman and Timi Olajide, Secretary and titled "Yoruba Youths Shall Resist Babangida" alleged that some Yoruba monarchs were said to have been bought over by Babangida in order to gain their support.
According to the group, Nigerians, especially, the Yoruba people are not cheap and "would never be taken in by such settlement syndrome that characterised his eight years unpalatable rule in the country."
Continuing, the council said: "Any monarch or supposed leader of thought who collects such settlement from the 'Evil Genius' in Yorubaland does so at his own risk as the youths of this country, whose future is more at stake in the land shall resist Babangida's return as the nation's President."
It described those clamouring for Babangida's return as people of "shady character," which others are "common criminals who were openly tried and convicted for committing crime against the state and the generality of Nigerians."
The group warned Babangida's campaigners to stop any act that could provoke violence in the country, even as it described some of them as being motivated by selfish interest. On the purported endorsement of Babangida by some members of the Abiola family, the NCYY noted that the action is of no relevance as June 12 transcends family or other consideration.
The June 12 election, it noted, symbolises the resolve of the generality of Nigerians to leave together in peace irrespective of social, cultural and political and ethnic divide.
"The issue of Abiola family supporting Babangida out of 150 million Nigerians is of no value and shall not constitute any electoral fortune to him in anyway if at all it is true," it said.
The group added that Babangida and his campaigners cannot divert the attention of Yorubas from the wounds inflicted on the nation for eight years, especially the June 12, 1993 election annulment.
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