North has enough voters to determine next President, says Northern Elders Forum
By Aliu Muktah
The Northern Elders Forum, (NEF) has enough voters to determine the democratic swing of Nigeria, the group’s Publicity Secretary, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed has said.
The said the North is in a position to lead the country and would not take the second position. “If the majority of Nigeria voters vote for a candidate from the North and he becomes the President and somebody doesn’t want to live under the Nigeria President, the person can leave.”
The NEF chief image maker said “We will lead Nigeria the way we have led Nigeria before whether we are President or Vice President, we will lead Nigeria. We have the majority of the votes and democracy says vote whom you want” Baba-Ahmed who gave the keynote address at the Maitama Sule Lecture Series organized by Coalition of Northern Groups, (CNG) Student Wing at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria said.
He said “Why should we accept a second class position when we know we can buy a form and contest for first class and we will win?Why does anybody need to threaten us and intimidate us? We will get that power but be humble because power comes from God. We inherited leadership and being honest is not being stupid.
Speaking further he said the North has pride but humble enough to know that the North is not going to run Nigeria alone but with other people, yet the region is not going to pay a second fiddle to anybody.
He said “We may not have the most robust economy, there are people who are trying to strangulate us even more than we are being strangled.”
Baba-Ahmed who is believed to be giving a hint on the forthcoming Presidential election said “We are ready for this. We will consider every economic adversity, challenge. We will fix the Northern economy and we are the only one who can fix this Northern economy. For that reason, we are not for sale. We are in the process of rebuilding the North and we will rebuild the North from 2023.”
He argued that whether the North holds power in 2023 or not anybody who wants to break up in this country will say so adding that they are just looking for excuses.
“This is democracy. If they don’t like what Nigeria is, they will say they want to break up from this country, we don’t pay attention to those people, we are focused on the fact that we are running a democratic system.”