Politics
Look beyond tribe in choosing the next President, ACF tells Northern voters
“Voters will do great disservice to themselves if they were to vote into offices persons they know, or should know, have no capacity to perform well, or are persons with questionable character,” were the words with which the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), tried again to rouse voters in the North to look beyond ethnicity in Saturday’s presidential election.
ACF, considered to be the major socio-cultural group that speaks for the North, advised voters to shun tribal sentiments and choose leaders who will cater for national interests, maintaining that “a leader does not have to come from our tribe, zone, region or religious persuasion,” adding “in our search for good leaders, we must cast our nets far beyond our ethnic, religious or geographical interests.”
In a statement, entitled: Achieving success with the 2023 general elections signed by Murtala Aliyu, Secretary-General, the group said: “Though the principle of power rotation is still largely and somewhat controversial, nonetheless, under our democratic dispensation we must reconcile ourselves to accepting that Nigeria is a country for all its citizens, and each citizen has right to choose whatever he or she believes to be in the best interests of themselves and their followers. At the same time, however, they also have to accept the principle of power rotation between north and south.
“At times such as this when the nation is in election mode, the ACF has always taken the liberty to draw the attention of voters to the right qualities they should look for when deciding whom to cast their votes for. At each occasion such as this the key selection criteria we recommend to voters to consider are very clear and objective party manifestos and the character and track records of the candidates.
“Voters are also always advised to shun those unhealthy schemes whereby a president or state governor handpicks a successor. Nothing promotes entrenched corruption, cronyism and poor leadership more that such schemes as such dubious arrangements. The nation will never be able of identify and select good leaders among its people so long as some dubious people are allowed to manipulate the selection of candidates and the ultimate election processes.
“A cardinal and national goal of our great and dear country Nigeria includes the creation of a nation in which: “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand” We, as a nation, believed so much in such slogan that at one time, it was a part of our national anthem! And in simple terms, it means that in our search for good leaders, we must cast our nets far beyond our ethnic, religious or geographical interests.
“A leader does not have to come from our tribe, zone, region or religious persuasion. We should seek for leaders that best cater for our national interests, and who are elected within the tenets of democratic processes. The tenents that allow people to choose leaders who will best cater for interests of the generality of the people, NOT their individual personal or the interests of their ethnic or religious groups.
“When 17 State Governors from Southern part of Nigeria and from different political parties met last year and demanded that a southerner must be elected as the President of Nigeria, the heavens did not fall. It was accepted that as we are in a democracy, they were entitled to their views and opinions. Quite recently also, some 14 northern Governors belonging to the ruling All progressives Congress Party, (APC) met and came out with the announcement that they had committed themselves to ensuring that a candidate of their party from the southern part of the country is elected president of the country. Their reason was that the emergence and subsequent election of a person from the southern part of the country will serve to entrench the principle of North/South power rotation in the politics Nigeria.”
Justice Haruna Tsammani, on Monday killed the attempt by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic (PDP) and Peter Obi, his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, both presidential candidates, respectively in the February 25 election to get Nigerians watch the proceedings at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, currently sitting in Abuja, live.
The court court, ruling on the plea that originated from the former Vice President, who had argued that it would give integrity to the process and was later joined by Obi, in a unanimous ruling, held that the application was without merit, adding that televising court proceedings is not provided for in any extant law in the country.
Tsammani, Chairman of the five-man panel of Court of Appeal Justices, sitting as PEPT, who read the lead ruling, while adopting the arguments of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, his All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which declared him winner of the election and which also railed against the move, agreed that it would not make the outcome of their decisions any cleaner.
To him, the court sitting in public did not mean that it should sit in a stadium or in marketplace and that there was no way televising the proceedings could advance the interest of fair hearing for parties or advance the interest of the petitioners in relation to issues raised in their petition, adding that granting the request by Atiku and the PDP could trivialise the serious business of the court.
Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State and current Chief Whip of the Senate, may be kissing his quest to lead the National Assembly in Nigeria by becoming 10th session Senate President goodbye, if the attempt to strip him of his All Progressives Congress (APC) identity succeeds.
Kalu, seen as one of the front runners for the nation’s number three citizen, was among the party stalwarts suspended by the ruling party on Thursday, alongside Ken Nnamani, former Senate President, Geoffrey Onyeama, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Sullivan Chime, former Governor of Enugu State.
Alongside former Speaker of Enugu state House of Assembly, Hon Eugene Odo; Director General Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu and former Commissioner in Enugu state, Joe Mammel, the APC bigwigs, who had earlier been slammed with their fate shortly after the 2023 general elections, had their suspension sustained by the party’s South East caucus.
The ratification of the suspension of the chieftains from Enugu and Abia States, who were initially slammed for allegedly engaging in anti-party activities, according to the APC Zonal Secretariat came after South East Executive Meeting on April 16, 2023.
Ijeomah Arodiogbu, National Vice Chairman (South East), who gave the reason for the action, as the need to enforce discipline in the party, in order to strengthen APC in the zone, listed other names to include: SA to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Flavour Eze, former chairman of the party in the state, Ben Nwoye; former deputy state chairman, A. C. Udeh; Obodoeze Ocho; Chukwudi Igwe; Kingsley Uduji; former Military Governor of the state, Joe Orji; Maduka Arum (A.K.A Mama) and Chidera Obed.
Others suspended alongside Kalu in Abia, included Sam Nkeire, Uche Sampson Ogah, former Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Senator Nkechi Nworgu, amongst others.
Ezeanyawu Michael, spokesman of the party in Enugu State, while stating that it was the right thing to do, said: “I want to further use this opportunity to call on the APC leadership, at both the state and national levels, not to relent in its efforts to rid the party of saboteurs.”
Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, on Monday emerged from a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock villa in Abuja, with a definite message to Nigerians – I will introduce something new, if elected as the new Senate President.
Akpabio, who left as the Minority Leader after losing his return bid in 2019 to take up appointment as Minister of Niger Delta, flaunted his credentials as governor, where he claimed to have made significant contributions to infrastructure, stating that he would be an “uncommon transformer” as the head of the nation’s legislature.
He told State House Correspondents after the meeting: “It is well known that Akpabio is a results-driven individual. You will remember that when I was a governor, I made significant contributions to infrastructure, education, social issues, and human empowerment.
“I intend to bring a lot of reforms into the senate, in the ways and manners we do business, to assist the next administration to succeed. We will be very thorough in doing everything; we’ll bring about loyalty to the constitution.
“The restiveness that we are seeing across the nation, we’ll do our best to make good laws and to assist the administration to bring about policies that will empower the youths of the country. I made that promise even on the convention day that being a man who used to turn boys into men and who still does, that I will like to work with the incoming president, who has also shown that example in Lagos state as a governor and thereafter as a leader of the APC in Nigeria.
“So, the youths are in for a very good time, in terms of empowerment, there will be no time for slacking and we’ll restrict a lot of them from being lured into criminality, into brigandage and all that.”
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