Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), made the statement over the weekend in Kaduna, Nigeria, “Don’t vote Yoruba, Igbo.”
Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), made the statement over the weekend in Kaduna, Nigeria, “Don’t vote Yoruba, Igbo.” The Arewa Joint Committee has publicly disassociated itself from the remark.
The committee, which was comprised of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Arewa House, the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), and Jamiyyar Matan Arewa, claimed that all of the candidates who participated in its interactive session spoke only from their own points of view.
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It is important that Atiku clears his name. The committee also put an identical question to the other contenders for president, who were all given the opportunity to respond. According to Murtala Aliyu, the Chairman of the session’s Steering Committee, speaking to media in Kaduna the other day, “So, we have no business with the views stated by our guests,” he remarked.
Aliyu expressed worry that “the nation is already displaying indicators of stress due to this exploitation” and issued a warning that “the exploitation of ethnic and religious fault lines is extremely damaging.”
When responding to a question made by Atiku, who is the spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), According to he, the reason that the North should back Hakeem Baba in 2023 is that “the normal Northerner does not require a Yoruba or Igbo president, but a northern president who is a pan Nigeria.”
His comment elicited replies from a variety of sources, with a significant number of people demanding that he apologize for his remarks.
Later, Atiku’s media advisor, Paul Ibe, emphasized that his principal was joking when he answered a question that was mostly focused on the North. Ibe said that Atiku’s response was a joke. Ibe further mentioned that Atiku will not attempt to play to the audience in order to win political points.
Aliyu had also clarified, during the press conference when he requested Atiku to justify himself, that the contacts with the presidential candidates were not designed to support any of them. This was done at the same time that Aliyu urged Atiku to defend himself.
He stated that the key objective was to hear from the contenders about how they meant to handle the difficulties of the North if any of them was elected President. He indicated that this would be the primary purpose.
According to the head of the committee, “These contacts in and of themselves were not intended with the intention of endorsing a candidate.” They are a part of a lengthier process that includes a large portion of the campaigning time and is designed to garner promises from candidates to solve the difficulties that the North faces.
“We want to extract and publicize these pledges in order to provide Nigerians with a benchmark against which they may compare and evaluate candidates,” Our objective is to make it possible for individuals to evaluate potential candidates based on their stances on issues that are vital to the interests of the North, and this will be accomplished by providing them with an opportunity to do so.
“Up to the elections in February 2023, the North will be put to the test to maintain an increased level of supervision over all electoral operations. It is very necessary for us to place a high priority on candidates who can provide proof that they are competent, honest, well-prepared, and committed to addressing the issues that are prevalent in the North.
“We will continue to invite the attention of the government to the security of the electoral process, and in particular the vulnerability of many parts of the North to organized crime, which may pose a serious threat to their right to participate in electing the next set of leaders in 2023. In particular, we will invite the attention of the government to the fact that many parts of the North are vulnerable to organized crime.
“As candidates for public office campaign for our elections, there has never been a time when it has been more important for them to demonstrate self-control and adherence to electoral protocol. The entirety of the Nation ought to be accessible to all competitors and free from any form of violence.
Youths operating under the auspices of the New Northern Initiative for Growth (NNIG) issued a stern warning to the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) in the city of Bauchi, urging them not to support any particular presidential candidate for the region’s northern states.
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Their reaction was in response to the rumored selection of Atiku, a former vice president, by the ACF as its single candidate. The youngsters, speaking at a press conference that was led by their National President, Lawal Sahab, stated that supporting Atiku based on feeling will remove the area from political circulation.
They issued a challenge to the ACF, demanding that it explain to Nigerians what Atiku has in the works for the prosperity of the North and the people who live there. The young people spoke up and stated, “We utilize this occasion to urge the so-called elders to explain to Northerners where they drew their mandate to impose a single candidate on the whole area.”
“We also challenge them to explain what criteria they utilized to arrive at the conclusion that Atiku is a consensus candidate for the North and to outline his contributions to the growth of the area that qualify him as such.
According to all assessments that can be considered realistic, Atiku has never shown any care for the North beyond the scope of using the region’s riches and the goodwill of the people living there in order to build up his political capital.
“Atiku, who has grown to prominence on the goodwill of the northerners, is unable to boast of any development initiative that he has ever affected directly or via the high posts he has held, thanks to the North.
“It is in his blind desperation to secure the Presidency that Atiku is sponsoring capitalist Northern leaders with no record of achieving anything for the region in order to manipulate the conscience of the northerner into believing that lies that he is a true northerner with good intentions for the region when in reality, the situation is exactly the opposite.
“The business-minded northern elders are so deluded by their acquisitive impulses surrounding shredding the nation with Atiku’s main aim for privatizing big public assets. This is pulling the nation apart.”
“It is important for the people of the North to refuse to be drawn into the lost battle of putting all of their eggs in one basket. This is especially important considering that Atiku’s antecedents of non-performance throughout his tenure as vice president have made him unreliable and a major risk for the North to take,”
In the meantime, the Presidential Campaign Organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has issued a warning to the citizens of Nigeria, advising them not to vote for any presidential candidate who is motivated by excessive amounts of self-interest in the next election.
The organization’s spokeswoman, Kola Ologbodiyan, urged Nigerians to keep an eye out for candidates who are able to provide solutions to pressing problems facing the country. In a statement that was released yesterday, Ologbodiyan also asked voters to question candidates on matters pertaining to transparency, accountability, and answerability in government.
He stated that the selling arguments for credible candidates should include subjects such as devolution of authority, state police, federal character, and other important matters that would be to the advantage of Nigerians.