Alhaji Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, spokesperson of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), speaks to DARE ADEKANMBI on the reason for the group’s stance on 2023 presidential race, power rotation, restructuring, among others.
In your comment, you said the North won’t succumb to blackmail as far as 2023 presidential race is concerned. How did you mean?
What we actually meant is that the North or any other region for that matter, must not stampeded into keeping to an undemocratic arrangement made without their input. Democracy is about persuasion, meaningful debates, and in most cases lobby and proper marketing rather than grandstanding.
It means that the northern region would definitely not support the agitation for the rotation of Nigeria’s presidency to the Southern region using blackmail, intimidation and threats.
It is important to note here that already many northerners have been discouraged from voting for a southerner as president with the manner governors and leaders of the region are going about their agitation. They are making the demand in a wrong manner that offends the conscience of sensitive northerners. They tend forget that votes and not agitations determine who becomes the president.
In politics, they ought to come off their high horses and decently reach out and convince the northerners on what they stand to benefit if they shift power to the South. The problem is the manner it is being pursued this time by people who were elected on the basis of the constitution, who understand that politics is about getting up and convincing people rather than just sitting down and saying we must have this, we must have that.
The southern politicians must know that the manner they are doing this is likely to cause more problem for them than solve the problems. They have to speak to the North, show us why a southern presidency is the best for the North and the rest of Nigeria. This is a democratic country. Citizens, Nigerians, irrespective of where they are, will vote; but they must not be cajoled.
Do you think, for the sake of equity and fairness, the next President should come from the North after Buhari, a northerner, will have spent eight straight years as president?
The South seems to be talking of fairness and equity in subjective rather than objective terms. They try to run away from the true narrative that the North and not the South has been the most shortchanged in terms of years in the presidency since 1999.
The truth is that for the entire 23 years of this democratic dispensation, the South has had 13 while the North would have 10 after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure. This certainly does not speak fairness and equity by whatever Lingua Franca.
Another bitter truth is that whatever agreement for rotation was reached, it was jettisoned by none other than South itself going by the events of 2011. This is besides. It is already irritating for a 60-year-old independent nation to place this much importance on regional or sectional presidency. We, on the contrary, are thinking along a generational not geographical transfer of power. We want power to shift from the click of southern and northern elite that has invariably monopolised the total available activity in the country since independence. And we find this argument about regional presidency as diversionary as it is archaic.
The governing APC has shown it is going to field a southern presidential candidate. But PDP is saying the race is open to the best man from any part of the country. Was your statement that the North must not be shut out of the race directed at the PDP leadership?
We made our position quite unambiguous that what the North would never ever submit to, is to be blackmailed into just sitting aside for the South to present candidates for them. This applies to all the parties that would be on the ballot and not just APC and PDP.
Let there be credible and fair primaries by all the parties with everyone participating regardless of his region, religion or tribe. At the end of the primaries, Nigerians would now be given the candidates to choose from.
For the avoidance of doubt, the North would definitely not support any party that deliberately excludes it from its candidate selection process.
What happens, in terms of how the North is likely to vote, if PDP picks a northerner as candidate and APC goes for a southerner?
That would be determined by the quality of the candidate, whether a Southerner or a Northerner. The new northern thinking is around, competence, capacity, integrity and of course age as an added advantage.
Looking at the presidential aspirants on the field so far, would you say there is hope of a messiah coming to fix the country from among them in 2023?
In all honesty, at the risk of making a blanket dismissal, I will say the stage is set for the continuation of the perpetuation of the same set of people.
The antecedents of all the aspirants that have so far shown interest in the presidency testify that these are people who have done their part, doing our part now and scheming to block the potentialities of the youths in every aspect. We have always maintained that the youths everywhere are the natural and legitimate claimants to the role of shaping the destiny of their societies. Most of them may not scale the yardstick of judgment on credibility, honesty, competence, capacity and age.
Should age be a factor in determining the next president?
Of course, age would be a major critical factor in the leadership selection process leading to the 2023 elections in addition to physical and mental alertness.
There is a general feeling in the South that the North is sore afraid of restructuring because of the fear of losing its unfair advantage in the country as currently constituted. What do you make of this?
That is another misplaced assumption that the North is afraid of restructuring or re-visiting the philosophy, structures and operations of the Nigerian state. Contrarily, the North has always joined in support of any enquiry and change in the manner we live that will improve our security and the quality of our lives.
The North has nothing to fear from any restructuring process, provided we are involved not as a problem but as partners who have a stake in a Nigeria that works for all of us. The North has many issues with the operations of the Nigerian state, but it does not routinely insult and blame the elite from other regions for them. On the contrary, we will welcome an opportunity to engage all parts of Nigeria in honest and open-ended discussions on constitutional reforms, the operations of our federal structure and national economy, and all issues which represent major sources of grievance.
Like all Nigerians, we have questions over the manner our nation operates and therefore have no cause to fear working with other Nigerians to establish a basis for identifying what is priority, what is essential, what is fair, what is avoidable and what we need to do as a nation to isolate violence from its central position in our lives.
Will the North vote for Atiku this time if he emerges PDP candidate because he was rejected in the region in 2019 on account of his support for the restructuring of the country?
I don’t agree that Atiku was rejected in 2019 on account of his stand on restructuring. Rather Atiku was clearly no match for Buhari who was at that time on the ballot. The popularity and acceptance gap was too wide. Besides, Atiku played a bad card by leaving the shores of Nigeria to operate major parts of his campaign for the United Arab Emirates. That also had angered the North. It’s never about restructuring. In 2023, what may work against Atiku may be his age. The age issue is now a serious matter among northerners that should not be taken for granted.
Would you say the Northern leaders have failed in not addressing the issue of endemic poverty and illiteracy in the region, despite having ruled the country’s political leadership for more than four decades of military and civilian governments?
This poverty thing is relative as far as we’re concerned, depending on the yardstick you use in measuring the level and rate and of course in determining who is responsible for what.
While it would be impossible to rule out elite failure on the part of most northern leaders, it is also true that for long, self-appointed enemies of the region both foreign and local have contributed immensely in ensuring the region remains backward.
It is no longer in doubt that the general and pervasive poverty currently being experienced across the Northern region in particular are part of a mega but clandestine plot spanning several years.
Today, everyone can see a clear pattern drawn from the strategies employed to achieve the results that the coupists of the First Republic failed to realise, namely the disintegration of the North and in particular, bringing its population down on its knees by political and economic incapacitation.
These enemies of the North have under various administrations tried to bring down the region by destroying its institutions, expelling its people from positions of responsibility in government, undermining its economic and social fabrics, and encouraging rampant poverty, and social problems.
We are aware that this conspiracy is actively perpetrated with the connivance of some leaders from the North and accommodated by the cowardice of those that present themselves as northern political leaders.
Our forefathers toiled and paid with their lives for a united and prosperous North and people. But successive generations of Northern leaders have failed to repay them by at least resisting antics of the protégés of those that assassinated them, their foot soldiers from other parts of the country and cronies from the North.