The Director, Publicity and Advocacy, Northern Elders Forum, Hakeem Baba – Ahmed, has said that a northerner should be voted President only if he is the best.
Baba – Ahmed asserted this during the ” Meeting of Northern Leaders of Thought’ tagged ‘ Rebuilding the North’Â in Kaduna at the weekend where he also said that being a northerner is not enough to lead the country.
In his keynote address, he explained further that Nigerians need good leaders, just as he said that northerners will demand to see evidence that a candidate does not just want power to fulfill a personal ambition in 2023.
“We want to see evidence that those who want to lead us in future understand the roots of, and solutions to our insecurity and poverty and distances from each other.
“We want to know how irredentism will be handled; how and when major changes in our structures and systems will be made to address popular grievances over the way our country should operate and how the economy can be re-engineered to achieve sustainable development,” Hakeem Baba-Ahmed emphasized.
According to him, many Northern elders and leaders with personal integrity and other qualities who should stand up to be counted have largely retreated into the discomfort of silence.
While speaking, the Director, Publicity and Advocacy also explained that younger Northerners are angry, frustrated and alienated, with virtually no linkages with elders and leaders, unless they are hired thugs in the service of politicians.
Meanwhile, in his contrary opinions, Adamu Maina Waziri said that a Northerner be made the next President of the country. Though, he said from another political party preferably People Democratic Party (PDP).
Waziri, who is also a member of the forum, advocated that the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar be given the mandate to steer the affairs of the country.