Afenifere is a socio-cultural organization for the Yoruba people of

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, with Chief

Abraham Adesanya Chieftain, Chief Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya (24 July 1922 – 27 April 2008) was a Nigerian politician, lawyer, activist, welfarist, and liberal progressive. He was a member of the Action Group (Nigeria), Action Group, on whose platform h ...

as its leader and Chief

Bola Ige Chief James Ajibola Idowu Ige ( ; 13 September 1930 – 23 December 2001), popularly known as Bola Ige, was a Nigerian lawyer and politician. He served as Federal Minister of Justice of Nigeria from January 2000 until his assassination in De ...

as deputy leader. Other founding members were Pa Onasanya, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Adegbonmire, Okurounmu Femi, Ganiyu Dawodu, Olanihun Ajayi,

Olu Falae Chieftain, Chief Samuel Oluyemisi Falae (born 21 September 1938), is a Nigerian banker, administrator and politician who was secretary to the military government of Ibrahim Babangida from January 1986 to December 1990, and briefly the Finance Min ...

Adebayo Adefarati Adebayo Adefarati (; 14 February 1931"Adefarati, AD Presidential candidate dies at 76", ''Vanguard'', 30 March 2007. – 29 March 2007) was a Nigerian politician who served as governor of Ondo State from 1999 to 2003. Life and career Adefa ...

, Alhaji Adeyemo and Ayo Adebanjo. When the Alliance for Democracy (AD) political party was formed in 1998, it took the Afenifere agenda as its official manifesto. Following a poor performance in the April 2003 elections, in late 2003 rival factions of the AD held separate conventions. In the Lagos convention, Adebisi Akande was elected as AD chairman. In January 2006, the convoy of AD leaders who supported Chief Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa as the party's national chairman was attacked by thugs in

Osogbo Osogbo (also known as ''Oṣogbo'', and seldomly as ''Oshogbo'') is a city in Nigeria. It became the capital city of Osun State in 1991. Osogbo city seats the Headquarters of both Osogbo Local Government Area (situated at Oke-Baale Area of th ...

, the capital of

Osun State Osun (; ), is a state in southwestern Nigeria; bounded to the east by Ekiti and Ondo states for 84 km and for 78 km respectively, to the north by Kwara State for 73 km, to the south by Ogun State for 84 km and to the wes ...

. In 2008, the Afenifere Renewal Group (alias ARG) was formed with the stated intent of reuniting the feuding factions, but perhaps as an alternative to the faction headed by the older generation of leaders. In November 2008, a faction of Afenifere in Ijebu Igbo,

Ogun State Ogun State is a state in southwestern Nigeria. It is bordered to the south by Lagos State and the Bight of Benin, to the east by Ondo State, and to the north by Oyo and Osun states while its western border forms part of the national borde ...

, led by Chief Ayo Adebanjo, installed Chief Reuben Fasoranti as the new chairman of the group. ARG Leaders including Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, Chief Bisi Akande, Wale Oshun and Yinka Odumakin stated that they did not accept the move. In October 2009, a spokesman for the ARG spoke out against plans to deregulate the domestic fuel market. That month, the ARG hailed the conviction of Chief Bode George and five others as an important step towards freeing Nigeria of corruption. A majority of the Yorubas see the pressure group as a legitimate force that is both serving their interests and maintaining the waning influence of Yorubaland in the Federation. They consider it to be a necessary body to preserve the ethnic identity of the Yorubas.

Criticism

There are some voices among the Yorubas that see the organization as a dangerous group. Responding to some questions by his followers at his London Awqaf Africa College, prominent Yoruba Muslim cleric Sheikh Dr. Abu-Abdullah Adelabu described Afenifere as a bunch of tribalists and self-serving ambitious, greedy rivals driven by

xenophobia Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...

and deep bigotry, and possessed by a delusion of their so-called cultural commonalities. Sheikh Adelabu, who founded the Awqaf Africa Society in London, said the only logic behind the Yoruba socio-cultural organization is that Afenifere exhibits the very paranoia that has made the Nigerians so hopeless and the Yoruba politicians so careless.EsinIslam Hausa Networking
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References

{{reflist Political organizations based in Nigeria Yoruba people