Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) said it had not endorsed any presidential candidate or political party in the 2023 general elections.
The National President of MACBAN, Alhaji Baba Usman-Ngelzarma, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Friday in Abuja.
He said: “First of all, I will have to make clarification because there are two Miyetti Allah groups. We have the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), which is the one I represent as the National President.
“As far as my association, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria is concerned, we have not endorsed any presidential candidate.
“We are still waiting for all the presidential candidates to answer our questions on the seven- point demands we raised and presented copies of a letter containing our demands to them.
“Uptil now, we have not received any consent from any of the presidential candidates. So, until we receive one, before we begin to analyse and consider within the shortest time we have and decide whether we can endorse or not.”
Usman-Ngelzarma said that all the major political parties have not included the challenges facing the Nigerian pastoralists in their manifestos.
” I personally presented our demands to the presidential candidates of the three major political parties, it is only the Labour Party that I didn’t personally submit but I have met with some representatives of the party and submitted the letter to them.
”So, before we decide on which presidential candidate to support, we have to sit together, analyse and discuss with the congress because that is our difference with the other pastoralists association.
“We are going to show our numerical strength in this year’s elections. Whoever we agree to vote for will get a block vote.
“And whichever candidate we endorse will win the election, because we have about 16 million registered voters from the pastoralists community in Nigeria,” Usman-Ngelzarma said.
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