A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Alhaji Moshood Salvador has said that those fighting Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu and other Yoruba leaders from contesting elections are fighting a lost battle.

Salvador stated this on Wednesday while addressing journalists against the backdrop of the statement credited to a leader of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo that the 2023 presidency should be ceded to the South-East and that Tinubu would be day-dreaming if he thought he would contest or be the president in 2023.

He condemned the leaders of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, saying if it is the wish of God for a Yoruba man to be the next president of Nigeria, the group cannot stop such a person.

Salvador, a former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, said it was wrong for any Yoruba leader or elder to oppose a Yoruba man from becoming the president as such action amounted to treason against the people.

He maintained that rather than speaking on the 2023 presidency, the Yoruba elders should proffer solutions on issues affecting the country and the Yoruba race in particular, which he said was the reason for setting up Afenifere in the first place.

Salvador stressed that Adebanjo’s argument that the South-East has never produced a President was false, noting that it is on record that the first President of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was from the region.

While describing the posture of the Yoruba leaders as rabble-rousing, inciting, offensive, illogical and terrible, Salvador stated that no Yoruba leader has empowered the people more than Tinubu.

He further reiterated that it was the people and not the Afenifere leaders who would decide who becomes Nigeria’s next president.

“These leaders forget that Nigeria is practicing party politics and in a party politics, any candidate can emerge.

“It is left for the party and the presidential candidate to reach out to other tribes for support. It is the people who now decide who becomes the president not an individual or group of people,” he added.