The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has expressed its support for a presidential candidate from the southern region, while rejecting northern candidates “for the sake of justice” and fair play.
Responding to a northern elder statesman, Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura who recently stated that the northern region should support ‘their own’ for the presidency, AYCF said after Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years as president, it is just and fair for a Southerner to take over in 2023.
AYCF urged the PDP presidential candidate, and his New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) counterpart, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso to bid their time.
Speaking in a press statement in Kaduna on Monday, AYCF National President Alhaji Yerima Shettima said “the support of a southerner for president by the region was clearly in the spirit of justice because Nigeria does not belong to the North alone, or Muslims and Christians of the North.
“Even on moral grounds, the most responsible political action by the North was the decision on power shift in 2023, because the presidency cannot be hereditary and Nigeria is not a Banana Republic.”
On what Daura, he said “the elder was expressing his personal opinion and not the stand of the North in general. Little balancing was needed in position of our father, Zangon Daura, more so when he admitted that the elders are mere escorts for the younger generation today.”
The AYCF noted that when 13 Northern governors led by Kaduna state Governor Malam Nasir el-Rufai endorsed a southern candidate for the 2023 presidency, they repeatedly cited political justice.
“Though we are not card carrying members of the APC, we shared the view that the decision was in line with being fair to the South in 2023.
“We are aware, as well as our father, Zangon Daura, that the North is respected for honoring its promises to the South and this is one absolutely undeniable character of all Northerners. We are not known to break promises and that explains why our son, President Muhammadu Buhari never objected to the idea of Southern presidential candidate in the ruling party. In the North, like our father Zangon Daura knows, promises are sacred and in fact a culture,” the group said.
