Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday paid a condolence visit to leader of pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, on the demise of the National Publicity Secretary of the group, Yinka Odumakin.

Obasanjo visited the nonagenarian at his Lagos residence to commiserate with him on the death of Odumakin. Odumakin died on Saturday at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital Covid Isolation Centre, according to his wife, Mrs Joe Okei-Odumakin.

Adebanjo had in a tweet described the death of the Afenifere spokesman as “too heavy to bear”.

Married to a fellow rights activist, Joe, in 1997, Odumakin’s voice was heard through the dark years of military despotism.
He played a major role in the National Democratic Coalition that fought the regime of late military head of state, General Sani Abacha, after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election.

As Afenifere spokesman, Odumakin spoke tenaciously for the rights of the Yoruba and the people of the South-West geopolitical zone. He was also a staunch critic of the policies and programmes of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd).

The late Afenifere spokesman, amongst other things, canvassed the ideas of restructuring, fiscal federalism, decentralised policing as solutions to the country’s socio-economic challenges.

Just before his death, he consistently condemned the activities of criminal Fulani herdsmen, who have been accused of farmland destruction, rape, killings and abductions in the South-West.