The foremost Yoruba socio cultural group, Afenifere, has condemned in the strongest terms “the campaign of calumny and false allegations against the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio”.
Afenifere said, “Akpabio’s only crime, it appears, is that he dares to cooperate and collaborate with the President in the spirit of statesmanship and progress.”
The group’s position, in a statement released in Akure on Friday and signed by its organising secretary, Abagun Kole Omololu, follows revelations by Dr Sandra Duru, that the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against Senator Akpabio by Senator Natasha Akpoti Udughan, a suspended member of the National Assembly, was false and part of a campaign to bring down the government of President Bola Tinubu.
Duru, a US-based activist said she had been approached by Senator Akpoti Uduaghan to join the campaign against Akpabio for a princely reward of N200 million.
She said she rejected the offer because it was against her conscience to fight an innocent man.
Afenifere commended Duru for her uncommon courage for speaking truth not only to power, but to conspiracy.
“We reject the weaponisation of false allegations as political tools — especially when such weapons are aimed at innocent men, families and private lives.
”Politics has its place, but it must never trespass the boundaries of human decency. To smear a man’s name, fabricate charges, and unleash innuendo on his children, his home, and his honour that is not politics. That is malice in its rawest form.
“We strongly decry the internationalization of fabricated domestic issues by those who authored the falsehood in the first place.
“This is akin to setting fire to your own seat in a cinema and running out crying “Fire! Fire!” — not out of alarm, but out of selfish ambition.
“It is selfishness that seeks to burn down the image of the nation to satisfy the ego of one person who believes that except she has her way, the country should not have peace.
“Nigeria is not a personal or tribal empire. Our nation will not bow to tribal blackmail. It will not bend to invented narratives. And it will not break under the weight of conspiracy.
“Let all patriots rally to the defence of truth, justice, and constitutional order. Let us remember that nations fall not only when tanks roll through streets — but also when lies, repeated often enough, begin to sound like truth,” Afenifere said.
Afenifere said, “Nigeria has ‘come too far to be dragged backward by petty ambition disguised as activism. Let us reject the agents of sabotage — not because they threaten one man, but because they threaten all of us.”
