The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has reaffirmed its preference for a presidential candidate from the Yoruba Muslim stock.
The group warned that any party that picks a Yoruba Christian as its 2023 candidate should forget Muslim votes.
“No political party should tell us that they cannot find competent Yoruba Muslims”, Professor Ishaq Akintola said on Monday.
A statement by the Director said no Yoruba Muslim ever occupied the State House either as president or vice president since 1960.
MURIC advised presidential aspirants and parties mapping out strategies for the next general elections to heed its call.
Akintola condemned the “stigmatisation galore” for Yoruba Muslims in Nigeria since independence.
The organization claimed they are denied almost all civil liberties, including admission into schools.
Akintola alleged many cannot get international passports, driving licences and voter registration cards because they are asked to remove their hijab for capturing.
He said schools humiliate hijab-wearing female Muslim students while the courts in the South-West are littered with litigations “on this ignoble stereotyping”.
“It is our belief that Yoruba Muslims need federal might to eliminate or at least scale down the tornado of oppression and the Tsunami of anti-Muslim sentiment.
“Only a Yoruba Muslim president who knows what has been happening can do this effectively. Who feels it, knows it”, Akintola insisted.
MURIC added that its position was not a categorical rejection of a Christian presidential candidate in 2023.