* Vow not to make similar mistake in future
The Northern Elders’ Forum has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari is a disappointment not just to the North, but the entire country, vowing that in 2023, they would not repeat the mistake of 2015/2019, when they voted on sentiment rather than competence.
The position of the elders was disclosed on Saturday by the NEF’s Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, on the sideline of the meeting of northern leaders of thought and groups held at the Arewa House, Kaduna.
According to the NEF’s spokesman, a northerner and his southern counterpart have equal rights to vie for the nation’s exalted office in the 2023 presidential race and as such the Northern region will only vote for a competent president regardless of region of origin.
Baba-Ahmed also warned that no northern presidential candidate should take the region for granted in 2023, regretting that that is how the region ended up with what he described as the ‘Buhari mistake’.
“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, however, scored Buhari’s administration 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.”