Afenifere, as a sociopolitical and economic organisation, is as old as the Action Group (AG), the political party founded by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and his associates in 1951. From inception, the party had a national outlook, though its core membership was drawn largely from the defunct Ẹgbẹ Ọmọ Odùduwà.
The leadership of the Action Group translated its vision into what became known as Afenifere, built around Awolowo’s cardinal programmes of free education, free healthcare, rural electrification and development, and life more abundant for all. Supporters and the Yoruba electorate affectionately referred to the party as Ẹgbẹ ọlọpẹ, “the palm frond group”, after the palm frond logo of the party.
Contrary to distorted narratives, the Action Group/Afenifere was never a tribal party. Among its notable non-Yoruba members were Pa Anthony Enahoro, Ernest Okoli, Samuel Ikoku and others. It was the deliberate distortion and falsification of historical facts by political detractors that falsely painted the AG/Afenifere as an ethnic Yoruba organisation. In reality, the Action Group was a welfarist party, whose ideology of social democracy was formally adopted at its Jos Convention of 1962.
However, this convention also witnessed the first major crack within the party, leading to the Premier of Western Region, Chief Ladoke Akintola’s faction breaking away to form the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which later allied with the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to form the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) for the 1964/1965 general elections. Meanwhile, the Action Group joined forces with the NCNC to form the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA).
The Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) emerged later as the political offshoot of the Action Group, just as the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA) would later spring from the same ideological root.
During General Ibrahim Babangida’s prolonged military transition to civil rule, Afenifere members participated in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) — one of the two political parties imposed by the regime after proscribing the political formations earlier established by the people.
Under the SDP, Chief M.K.O. Abiola won the historic June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, which was subsequently annulled by Babangida. In the ensuing struggle to reclaim Abiola’s mandate, Afenifere joined forces with other progressive platforms, civil society groups, and individuals to form the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), under the leadership of Pa Adekunle Ajasin, then the leader of Afenifere.
Pa Ajasin did not live to see the dawn of civil rule, and leadership passed to Pa Abraham Adesanya, under whose stewardship Afenifere and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) swept the six southwestern states in the 1999 elections. It was under the AD platform that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, now Nigeria’s President, became Governor of Lagos State.
However, internal crises soon engulfed the AD and, by extension, Afenifere. The “No more Baba sọpe” rebellion against Afenifere leadership led to a splinter group, the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), led by Hon. Wale Osun, who continues to head the faction to this day. Tinubu was widely believed to have masterminded this split.
When Pa Reuben Fasoranti succeeded Pa Abraham Adesanya as leader of Afenifere, Tinubu continued to bankroll the splinter faction. As age and health challenges set in, Pa Fasoranti voluntarily stepped aside, handing leadership to Pa Ayo Adebanjo, while Oba Oladipo Olaitan was appointed as Deputy Leader.
The renewed attempt to polarise Afenifere began when the group, in line with its long-standing advocacy for justice, fairness, and equity, supported an Igbo presidential candidate, arguing that it was the turn of the Southeast (Ndigbo) to produce Nigeria’s president. Having realised the potential political weight of Pa Adebanjo’s principled stance, one capable of swaying Yoruba votes away from him, Bola Tinubu, whose splinter faction lacked grassroots legitimacy, sought to undermine Afenifere’s unity.
Tinubu’s visit to Akure, the home of the voluntarily retired Pa Fasoranti, was widely seen as an attempt to either secure endorsement or sow further division within the Yoruba political fold.
Ironically, Tinubu returned to the very structure he once sought to weaken. Yet, like Amalinze the Cat in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Afenifere refused to die.
The secretive meeting between Pa Fasoranti and Tinubu marked an unprecedented reversal of Afenifere’s leadership principles, with the former leader appearing to stage a Tinubu-sponsored comeback to challenge his own chosen successor, Pa Adebanjo.
Nevertheless, Afenifere under Pa Adebanjo stood firm in its support for Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, as a matter of conscience and fairness. Following Pa Adebanjo’s passing early last year, Tinubu’s political machinery again attempted to take over Afenifere, but failed. The National Caucus of Afenifere unanimously endorsed Oba Oladipo Olaitan as its new National Leader.
Frustrated by this outcome, Senator Femi Okunrounmu and others loyal to Tinubu retreated to Akure, continuing their manipulation of the aged Pa Fasoranti. The so-called Afenifere stakeholders’ jamboree held in Akure represents, in the words of the late Professor Eskor Toyo, “starting from a repeated start.”
While the Akure faction has every right to assemble and endorse Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his neoliberal, anti-poor policies, it is grossly misleading to claim to speak for or represent Afenifere. That faction long abandoned the ideals and philosophy of social welfarism, the principles Chief Obafemi Awolowo lived and died for.
Today, the Awoist philosophy remains alive and steadfast under the legitimate leadership of Oba Oladipo Olaitan, the National Leader of Afenifere. Any other group parading itself as Afenifere is nothing but a band of pretenders and impostors, shadow-chasing dissidents estranged from the true welfarist spirit of Awolowo’s Afenifere.
Comrade Wale Balogun
Convener, Mekunnu Koya
Writes from Lagos.
