There are over 800 days to Nigeria’s 2023 general elections but political permutations are in top gear with the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) saying northerners will vote for a competent Igbo candidate who knows about the economy and fix the security situation.
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Director of Publicity of NEF Hakeem Baba-Ahmed however urged Nigerians calling for an Igbo presidency to learn from the President Buhari situation, whose presidency has brought more hardship and insecurity to the North where he garnered more votes in 2015.
“I think people should learn a lesson from what the north is going through, President Buhari came into power in 2015, voted largely by northern votes and other Nigerians.
“The north has never been poorer, has never been more insecure, has never been in the state where we are, we have never seen the kind of insecurity that we have. This is a northerner who was voted by northern votes substantially and the region where he comes from is the worst for it,” Baba-Ahmed said when he appeared on ARISE News.
Many political observers have said zoning the presidency to the southeast will ensure justice, but the top Northern Elder Forum member said the forum isn’t seeking justice for ethnic groups but justice for Nigerians.
He said, “if a competent Igbo person emerges through the political process, and is better than all the other candidates that come, people who know about the economy, people who know how to fix security, people who know how to get young people jobs, the northerners will vote for them.
“What we will not accept is a situation where people will say to the north, you have done your eight years, you’ve suffered for it, your so-called man has dropped the ball on you, and you are poorer, you are more insecure so the presidency should go somewhere now as if the presidency belongs to particular ethnic group.
“So it’s the ethnicization and this tendency to say unless you give us the presidency there’s no justice in this country.”
By Abel Ejikeme
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