…give conditions for backing Buhari
- We won’t support any candidate above 50 years – Arewa youths
Following the altercation between the supporters of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and those of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari over the 2019 presidential election, the North has berated the nation’s ex-number two man for allegedly being desperate to become president in 2019.
The region has, however, stipulated conditions for backing the re-election of the President in the next general elections.
The umbrella socio-political organisation for the North, the Arewa Consultative Forum declared Atiku as being “unduly eager” to take over the Presidency of the country from his kinsman, Buhari, in 2019.
Secretary General of the ACF, Mr. Anthony Sani, in an exclusive interview with The Point, lambasted the former vice president for his alleged plan and utterances on the 2019 presidential race, midway into the tenure of the incumbent President.
Recently, one of his loyalists in the Buhari government, who is also the Minister of Women Affairs, Sen. Aisha Alhassan, stirred the hornet’s nest when she declared that she would back the former vice president’s presidential ambition in 2019, as the incumbent President only promised to spend a term in office.
The ripples of the controversy generated by her utterances are still being felt across the nation’s political turf.
A few days after, Atiku accused the Buhari government of sidelining him, adding that he was in a better stead to fight corruption than the current President.
But the ACF secretary general described Atiku as being “unduly eager to be President,” saying that it was “illegal and morally preposterous” for the former vice president to launch his campaign for the 2019 election when the tenure of the incumbent President had just gone half way.
Sani argued that the former vice president should have been patient till the period for the presidential primaries of the ruling APC before kicking off the campaign for his political aspiration.
He said, “If Atiku believes he can fight corruption better than President Buhari, he is in a position to advise the President on how best the campaigns against corruption can be managed. This is more so that he is a seminal figure of the ruling party. This is no time for primaries of political parties. So, for Atiku to campaign in that manner, midterm into the tenure, is both illegal and morally preposterous. Let him be patient until the time comes for party primaries.
“To the extent of talking about next elections midterm, one can say the former vice president is unduly eager to be president. But that is the nature of politics. All that politics demands of Atiku is for him to be patient and wait for the time to come for party primaries.”
The ACF secretary general, however, said Buhari would only secure the North’s endorsement to recontest in 2019 if by the end of his current four-year tenure, his administration had succeeded in delivering on the promises he made to Nigerians while campaigning to be elected as the nation’s president in 2015.
This is no time for primaries of political parties. So, for Atiku to campaign in that manner, midterm into the tenure, is both illegal and morally preposterous. Let him be patient until the time comes for party primaries…the former vice president is unduly eager to be president
According to him, “If the administration delivers on its campaign promises at the end of its tenure, the North will support Buhari. But we are midterm of the tenure and many things can change in the next two years. You would note that the regime had promised three things – to fight terrorism, to fight corruption and to diversify the economy away from oil. So far so good because Boko Haram has been weakened and localised to the fringes of Borno State as against the past when the attacks transcended northern states. The fight against corruption has stigmatised it.
“As a result, the practice of cash-for-peerage in the polity is giving way to order, justice and common decency. The priority on these two evils is informed by the fact that no economy can thrive in the atmosphere of untamed terrorism and unbridled corruption. The administration has arrested the inherited downward movement of the economy. What remains is to reverse the direction upward for the growth needed for making Nigerians experience change. If at the end of the tenure, Nigerians agree that the regime has delivered on its campaign promises, then ACF will pander and support Buhari. But I think it is too early for ACF to make such decision. More so that other political parties have yet to present their candidates for 2019.”
Also speaking, the President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Alhaji Shettima Yerima, ruled out the possibility of Atiku becoming the President in 2019, saying that the North, and particularly the youths, would no longer accept anyone above 50 years of age for the position.
Yerima noted that the recent outbursts of the former vice president were enough indications that he had become more confused by his alleged desperation for the office of the nation’s number one citizen.
He said, “It is unfortunate that all of a sudden the man became more confused and he is getting confused, day by day, because of his desperation to become President, forgetting that power is given and taken by God. He should have known this than getting confused, talking anyhow in recent times. And, day by day, his desperation is obvious.
“But for me and our people, we have long put him behind us because, we will not, I repeat, we will not accept anybody of Northern extraction above 50 years as our candidate again. He is becoming more desperate and he is compounding his problem. He talks anyhow in recent times and it is obvious that he doesn’t even carry his region along. And I do not also see him becoming popular in the South, not to talk of North. It is impossible. So, he should be mindful and go back to history and see that desperate people don’t get to power in our history.”
But a Northern elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, told The Point that the former vice president had the right, like every other Nigerian, to aspire for the highest political office in the land.
Yakassai said that rather than criticising Atiku for exercising his legitimate right, his political fate in 2019 should be left for God and Nigerians to determine.
“Atiku may be seen as being desperate with his recent comments, but I believe he also has the right, because he has shown interest to become the President of the nation for years just like Buhari. So, I don’t know about him being desperate. But I know he is entitled to his interest as every other Nigerian. It is God who gives power. And it is Nigerians that will determine his fate,” he said.
Atiku’s spokesman, Paul Ibe, did not answer calls made to his phone by our correspondents. He also did not reply a text message sent to him as at press time.
Meanwhile, the ACF secretary general also restated the opposition of the North to the demands for the restructuring of the country.
He said, “Let them make no mistake. The North is not afraid of restructuring. What the North has said is that there is nothing wrong with the current structure of the country or form of government. The North believes our problems are due to failure of leadership that comes with poor governance. There is also the problem of collapse of national ideals and moral values, which have contributed in no small measure to our national malaise. We believe in republic of ideals and ideas spurred by relative pluralism and not of insular, primordial particularism that goes with cloistered communities with strong historical ties to places.
“We do not believe there is something like true federalism that is universally accepted. This is because all federal systems depend on the circumstance of their emergence. Take for example, 13 American colonies came together and formed a confederate United States of America with a weak centre that predisposed the Union to disintegration. That made them to supplant it with a federal structure where the centre is balanced by appropriate state level power.”
The ACF secretary general further described the current plans by the ruling APC to hold a public hearing on restructuring as a waste of time and an exercise in futility.
