2007: IBB campaigners move to South West, flood Osogbo
with posters
By ‘Gbenga
Faturoti, Osogbo and Sola Shittu, Ibadan
Coordinators of the campaign for former
military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, to become president in 2007 have
intensified their efforts in the South West by pasting his posters on major
streets of Osogbo, Osun State capital.
In Ibadan, Oyo State capital, a prominent member of the IBB
Project 007 group, Princess Bisi Sangodoyin, on Tuesday threw her weight behind
the call from prominent Nigerians that Babangida should apologise to the nation
for the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Findings revealed that despite threats to
scuttle his ambition in the South West, Babangida’s posters were finding
their ways in market places, cinema-houses and town halls in the zone, where it
was believed IBB would meet the greatest opposition to his aspiration.
It was learnt that towns like Osogbo,
Ilesa, Ede, Ikirun, Ejigbo, Iwo, Ibadan, Ogbomoso, Oyo, Abeokuta, Ado-Ekiti,
Akure, Ondo and Owo have been flooded with IBB posters soliciting for support
and vote. Agents of the group usually paste the posters produced by one of
Babangida’s campaign organisations, ‘The Vision 2007,’ at
night. Residents woke up to find to great embarrassment and feared the posters
and worried that they might be accused of lending their support to the IBB
campaign.
Babangida said at the weekend in Funtua,
Katsina State that only God could stop him in his 2007 ambition saying,
“all those who were against my ambition on the ground of the June 12,
1993 presidential election are wasting their energy as only God can stop
me.” He said: “I owe no one any apology over the annulment of the
June 12, 1993 presidential election. June 12 has become a dingdong affair. I
will not bother myself to talk about it anymore and those calling me to
apologise should spare me out.” He said the purported plan by the former
President of the Christian Association of Nigeria and Prelate of the Methodist
Church in Nigeria, Sunday Mbang, to lead a crusade to scuttle his quest to
return to Aso Rock it was an empty threat. “Mbang is a man of God and I
am also a believer in God. So, if he is God, he can do whatever he
likes,” Babangida said.
The Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) has,
however, vowed to resist any attempt to hold rallies in support of the 2007
presidential ambition of Babangida.
The congress said any hall owner or school head teacher who
made his or her facility available to the promoters of the planned rallies
would blame himself or herself.
The congress said more than 50,000 of its
members have been mobilised to resist the planned rallies in Yorubaland.
“OPC warns any person, group of
persons or association, including hall owners and head teachers of public
schools, who wish to make their premises available for pro-IBB rallies and may
wish to break the order made by our President, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, that IBB
is not welcome in Yorubaland.
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2004. All Rights Reserved.
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