The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, AYCF, on Sunday,
condemned the decision of Northern governors to back a Southern Presidency in
2023.
AYCF National President, Yerima Shettima, said the decision
of the Northern governors was undemocratic and disenfranchisement of
Northerners.
Shettima lamented that the 11 Northern governors did not
consult Northern stakeholders before zoning the Presidency to the Southern part
of the Country.
In a statement he signed, the AYCF National President urged
President Muhammadu Buhari to reject such a move by the governors.
According to Shettima, the decision was an attempt to deny
Northerners their rights to participate in democracy.
He said: “We have been following with keen interest the open
disdain for the ethics of democracy by 11 Northern Governors who, willy-nilly
traded off our region’s right to participatory democracy by taking a stance on
direct power shift to the South.
“We are deeply disturbed that in addition to their failure
to save the North from massive poverty, insurgency, banditry and kidnapping,
they are turning around to deny us the right to freely choose where our people
want the next President to come from. But we don’t expect party Delegates to
follow the self-serving agenda.
“It is undemocratic to Zone Nigeria’s Presidency to the
South in 2023 because it is the prerogative of voters to decide which candidate
they would like to vote for, whether a Northerner or a Southerner. The masses
have not spoken yet, and it amounts to imposition to declare that the South is
the way to go.
“The 11 Northern Governors did not indicate a single effort
they made to consult their people in the region, before their wholesale
endorsement of the declaration for a Southern presidential candidate. An
important pillar of democracy, which in consultation with the masses, is out of
the question because our governors would rather pretend that their wish is
supreme.
“We are deeply worried that the dream of having new faces at
the helmsman of affairs of our democratic institutions has now been
deliberately killed by self-serving Governors of the North.”
Shettima accused the governors of deliberately attempting to
blackmail Buhari into doing their bidding.
He added: “The real agenda of these Northern governors,
which is now unfolding, is to deliberately blackmail Buhari into doing their
bidding. They expect the President, who loves his people so much, to turn his
back via allowing his successor to emerge through the backdoor. We urge
President Buhari never to succumb to these Governors’ cheap blackmail of
selling out our people’s right to vote for the real candidate of their choice –
whether a Northerner or not.
“We call on all Northerners of good conscience to reject
this wholesale disenfranchisement of innocent Northern voters in broad daylight
by State Chief Executives that are bound by the constitution and the Rule of
Law to protect and promote our interests as obedient followers. We say no to
this brigandage and brazen dictatorship in the guise of democratic strategy.
“We are seriously looking up to President Buhari not to let
the North down. And our biggest hope are the Delegates who have a duty to do
whatever is democratically right to defend, promote and project the interest of
Nigerians in general and the Northerners in particular.
“We are still watching very closely to this disenfranchising
move of the Northern governors against their people, for self-serving political
agenda. And we are also waiting to see what happens tomorrow, to see whether
they have a new definition of democratic culture and decorum.”
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So when the south decided to zone the presidency to the north in 2015 and 2019 it was not undemocratic! Just keep your mouth shut. Which north are you speaking for. No more north or south as we used to know it then.
ReplyDeleteAfter 8 years of northern presidency of PMB, power should shift to other part or protectorate of Nigeria in this case southern protectorate. Was it only northern Nigeria that voted for President Buhari. No. The igbos and yorubas and binis and ijaws also voted.
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