Afenifere: Who becomes the next leader?

IROHINOODUA EDITORIAL, November 12, 2026

Who becomes the next leader of Afenifere is as crucial to the 72 year organisation as it is important to the future of Yoruba Nation.

Truth: Afenifere in the past ten years, since the death of the last of the moral titans, Pa Abraham Adesanya on April 27, 2008, has become the relic of once a great monument. Not only did the organisation lost its intellectual power, it became increasingly irrelevant, desolate, offering a canopy for opportunistic, self serving and even rabidly anti Yoruba elements. Afenifere lost its steam, its ideological direction and the historic pathway defined by its founders.Across Yorubaland, the group became a reference point for a group of old men with boring and outdated ideas. To make things worse, the organisation’s leaders spat at each other in the public leading to ceaseless friction.

The division opened the floodgates for rogue political figures to attempt hijacking the philosophy of an organisation they knew nothing about its history. All sorts of characters lay claim to being Afenifere. The charm, the magic grip on Yoruba nation was lost.The Yoruba suddenly become a flock of sheep without shepherd.

Eventually, Afenifere broke into two sharply opposed camps, one led by Baba Ayo Adebanjo whose bloc embarrassed the entire world by supporting Mr Peter Obi, an Igbo from the South East in the Presidential election having substituted his grievances with current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was then the All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate with the collective interest of Yoruba Nation.Obi has and has no history of any radical or revolutionary character, no record of support for restructuring, a key point in Afenifere’s philosophy and not traditional alliance with Yoruba political history, yet this bloc, headlong plunged into the obedient ocean and it sank with it.

Many Yoruba believed Baba Adebanjo’s faction’s support for Obi was driven not by any informed ideological position, neither by Yoruba interest but by vengeance and a shameful act of revenge that completely isolated Afenifere from the Yoruba people.

His action also delinked the Yoruba population from everything Afenifere had defended for almost a century.But inspite of Yoruba cheering and booing, this trudge pushed ahead not looking back to see the streets empty of supporters.

While Pa Fasoranti tried to reshape the group, the damage caused by Adebanjo’s camp has become too messy to clean up. Instead of admitting its error, the Adebanjo camp, after his death anointed a Traditional ruler, Oba Oladipo Olaitan as its new leader and one unknown Justice Faloye as its Secretary General to consolidate a monument already smeared with shame and public disdain.

The two have taken only on one assignment: attack people in power in a riotous reckless manner, rather than to input new ideological direction, energise and reorganise the association and reclaim its flouderingh fortunes.

It remains horrific how Afenifere wishes to see a traditional ruler sitting at the driver’s seat of a democratic organisation that itself has become the property of the Yoruba people. In the first place, Afenifere is expected to be a forum to advance Yoruba cultural, political and economic interests, having a traditional ruler at the helms creates a natural obstacle giving the fact that Obas are in reality employees of the Government and subject to the control and authority of the Local Government.

The promoters of the original philosophy led by Pa Fasoranti fought hard to preserve the identity but revisionists would not allow the organisation to regain its glory and its terribly damaged internal organs. The leader of Afenifere is historically expected to be ahead of any other person in Yoruba political affairs making it difficult to imagine a traditional ruler occupying the post. Obas are Kabiyesi which means No One Questions him. Afenifere does not need a leader that cannot be questioned. Afenifere needs a leader that can be thoroughly questioned, a leader whose cap can be removed, a leader who cannot be sacked by a State Governor or a Local Government chairman.But Oba Olaitan chooses to be adamount even as the whole crowd mocks at his usurpation of a seat that does not belong to him, a soldier without troops. IROHINOODUA has no grudge with Oba Olaitan. He is said to be of high moral grounds and a progressive. But you cannot be Oba and at the same time be Afenifere leader. It’s a bundle of contradiction.

The Choice Before Afenifere

The Yoruba people cannot allow the organisation they own to be permanently hijacked by renegades and reactionaries. The people must stand up and firm, to take back what belongs to them. Afenifere has always accommodated Oodua Peoples Congress, (OPC), Oodua Liberation Movement, (OLM), Coalition of Oodua Self Determination Groups, (COSEG), Alliance for Yoruba Democratic Movements, (AYDM), Oodua Nationalist Coalition, (ONAC), Oodua Republic Front, (ORF), Federation for Yoruba Consciousnesses and Culture, (FYCC), Oodua Youth Movement, (OYM) and many others. These groups need to compel a meeting of Afenifere or seize the initiative for the emergence of a new leadership that has history and character.

Our recommendations

IROHINO’ODUA wishes to recommend to the remaining leaders of Afenifere the custodians of the original Afenifere philosophy with ideological clarity including but not limited to Chief Kole Omololu, Pa Ayo Opadokun, Wale Osun, Dare Babarinsa, Shenge Rahman, Gbenga Awosode, Prof Mobalaji Aluko, Dayo Adeyeye, Micheal Popoola Ajayi, Jimi Agbaje, Gbenga Daniel, Akin Oshuntokun to rise to the occasion.

At present, there is no acceptable Afenifere leadership, but people some Yoruba describe as a bunch of profiteers, racketeers, parading themselves as Afenifere leaders. Little wonder the quality of Afenifere responses to issues affecting Yoruba have been barren, petty and shallow.
Let us face it.

IROHINOODUA wishes to recommend to Afenifere two solutions: One is to call a meeting of all Yoruba self determination groups, second is to look towards the direction of the following two people from which the new Afenifere leader should emerge: Bishop Ayo Ladigbolu, Pa Ayo Opadokun, Hon Wale Osun and Dare Babarinsa.

Yoruba nation is at a critical junction. We need a new Afenifere now or the organisation be condemned to the thrashbin of history as the existing multiple organisations take its place.