THE Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has urged the National Leader of All Progressives (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to banish his thoughts of becoming the country’s president, come 2023, saying that the North would not back anyone from the South- West for such exalted office, giving the level of juicy Federal Government appointments, among others now in favour of the zone.
This was just as the group cautioned Tinubu and those it described as “his collaborators in the All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government” to steer clear of Senate President Bukola Saraki and jettison “the new plot to unleash Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and other anti-corruption agencies in order to intimidate the man.”
Tinubu has been challenged over his taut presidential ambition in 2023, with one of the aides of Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir el- Rufai, kicking against such idea, while the governor himself came out to attack the syndrome called godfatherism in Lagos politics.
AYCF gave this position in a statement made available to newsmen on Monday by its national president, Comrade Yerima Shettima, saying that under the current dispensation, “through the total dominance and manipulation of political and economic power, the South- West has badly shortchanged the North, making it’s people irrelevant in the running of government for more than four years.”
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“There is no way after cornering all the juicy Federal Government appointments and skewing development projects in favour of the South- West anyone will dare approach the North with the issue of seeking for the presidency in 2023. That will be totally unacceptable,” he declared.
Shettima vowed that it would employed all legitimate avenues to resist the manipulations of what it called “one man” whose primary goal in life was the 2023 Presidency, assuring that it would amount to waste of resources for such a person to embark on a project that “is no longer possible because the country belongs to all of us.”
According to him, the era of any politician calling the shots in other people’s territory is long gone, adding: “We’re not in the Banana Republic and the world has moved on from the era of political impunity.”
Speaking on the Senate president’s issue, AYCF president, while giving the caution, noted that much as the group supported the war against corruption, it would resist any subtle attempt to hide behind politics to intimidate Dr Saraki, who he described as “our sons in positions of authority.”
He declared that the North had come of age, saying no one single Nigerian should determine the fate of prominent Northerners in government, as they “are not robots.”
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