January 15, (THEWILL) – The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) says the region will only vote for a ‘competent Nigerian president’ in the 2023 presidential election.
The NEF’s Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, stated this in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the meeting of northern leaders of thought and groups held at the Arewa House, Kaduna on Saturday.
Baba-Ahmed, who said that both northerners and southerners have equal rights to contest the Presidency, however, said that the region would vote for a ‘Competent Nigerian president’ in 2023 whether from the north or south.
He maintained that no northern presidential candidate should take the region for granted in the 2023 race, pointing out that was how the region ended up with what he described as the “Buhari mistake”.
He said the north was deceived into voting in Buhari believing that the country would be better off. He, however, lamented that the reverse was the case today as the north and the entire country was worst off than when Buhari took over in 2015.
He said, “a northerner and a Southerner have equal rights to contest but Northerners should be very careful of who they vote for in 2023.
“No northerner should take us for granted. That’s how we ended up with President Buhari. We don’t want to repeat the same mistake. If you must be a northerner who’s better than all the candidates; for us, that’s the bottom line. It’s not enough to be a northerner, you have to be the best. You have to be the best for the North and you have to be the best for the rest of Nigeria.
“We are looking for a Nigerian President. If it comes from the North, fine but he must be voted for by Nigerians and he must be good and he must be better than all the others. That’s what we are looking for.”
He scored the Buhari’s regime low in all aspects ranging from the worsening security, corruption to the sorry state of the nation’s economy and summed him up as a “disappointment.”
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