Former minister of aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has said that the rumour of former President Olusegun Obasanjo not a full-fledged Yoruba may be true.
Fani-Kayode, who is the Director of New media sub-committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council made this claim on his Twitter handle on Sunday, while reacting to a comment by an elder statesman, Chief Emmanuel Iwanyanwu, allegedly referring to Yoruba people as “rascals”.
Fani-Kayode stated that the Obasanjo he knew would never have tolerated such a statement from Iwanyanwu, expressing however, over the former President’s silence over the comment.
He said, “The fact that our reverred leader and one of the fathers of our nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, can sit there and say nothing when Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Iwanyanwu, an elderstatesman who I have always respected, describes the entire Yoruba race as “rascals” that the Igbo “will DEAL with” tells me that the rumour that he is NOT a fully-fledged Yoruba man and that his father was an Igbo may well be true.
“Whatever the case this is not the OBJ I once knew, loved, defended and worked so hard for. Something has gone wrong,” he said.
According to him, no one would have gotten away with such a statement against any tribe in Nigeria in the presence of Obasanjo.
“No-one could have made a statement against ANY tribe in the presence of the old OBJ that we all knew and respected and got away with it. He would have got up and told them off.”
The former Aviation Minister added that he needed not to respond to statement or to any other people denigrating the Yoruba people, as he was connected to the Igbo tribe.
“As for Iwanyanwu I will not respond to him or to all those that were at that event and that collectively rubbished our people because they are my in-laws and because my four sons are half Igbo,” he added.
