Northern Elders Forum divided on who to back as its presidential candidate next year

MEMBERS of the Northern Elders Forum (Nef) have been unable to agree on which presidential candidate to back in next year's elections after a meeting to debate the issue ended in stalemate with delegates divided on who to support.

In February, Nigeria goes to the polls and the presidential election is expected to be a two-horse race between incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Both men are Fulani Muslims from northern Nigeria, so meet all the criteria the Nef would use in agreeing on a candidate.

After a recent meeting in Kaduna, several Nef leaders said they will not support President Buhari’s re-election but shied away from declaring their support for Alhaji Abubakar and the PDP. Nef convener  Professor Ango Abdullahi, said they remained undecided, although three other key officials immediately distanced themselves from his position, saying they were solidly behind President Buhari and will do everything possible to get him re-elected next year.

Major General Paul Tarfa, Captain Basir Sodangi and Sani Daura, said that President Buhari deserved re-election because of his excellent performance and the fact that replacing him would turn the hand of development backwards.  However, Professor  Abdullahi, said the elders arrived at the decision to dump President Buhari for another northern presidential candidate because of his failure to fulfil the basic conditions they handed to him in 2015 when they rejected the then President Goodluck Jonathan and elected him.

Professor Abdullahi said: “Two of the conditions we gave Buhari upon his assumption of office were that he should take concrete steps to address the abject poverty and underdevelopment in the north and he has woefully failed to marginally address any of them. Assuming that things are working in the North or in Nigeria as a whole, we would have taken a different position but everyone can see that things are not working under this government.

"Perhaps, as a prelude to where this government has taken this country, Buhari wasted six months before being able to set up his cabinet and when he eventually formed the cabinet, he brought in persons who had not added any value to governance and his wife has vindicated us on this. As things stand today, we in the Nef do not believe that Nigeria’s cause will be helped by Buhari’s re-election in 2019m which is why we have decided to pick one of the other presidential candidates from the north for next year’s contest."

He added that it would be futile for anyone to blame anybody for the decision of the Nef against President Buhari because his own wife has openly alluded to their position that some persons, who do not have the interest of Nigeria at heart, are running the administration without adding real value to the governance of Nigeria.  Professor Abdullahi, who served as former President Obasanjo’s special adviser on food security, pointed out that President Buhari was the architect of his own misfortune, having repeatedly rebuffed all entreaties by northern leaders to meet with him and address the issues.

Professor Abdullahi added: “Apart from his poor performance to the dissatisfaction of those who made him president, Buhari has deliberately rebuffed all attempts by the Northern Elders Forum to meet with him and discuss issues pertaining to the region and Nigeria. This is the reason we meticulous screened over 13 persons from the north and finally picked four out of the large number and our choice has also been endorsed by leaders of southern Nigeria including Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Afenifere and Middle Belt leaders.

“We believe that there is no need for us to be talking to Buhari again about what he needs since that will not change anything. We have moved and our votes will not be based on sentiment of tribe or religion but strictly on performance."

He added that he was pained by the behaviour of the president, having taken the risk to be at the forefront of his election in 2015 on account of which he was called unprintable names by those in the Jonathan administration. According to Professor Abdullahi, the north rejected former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 not because he was a southerner and a Christian but because he blatantly reneged on the agreement to complete former President Yar’Adua’s tenure by doing one term and handing over power to the north to do eight years as former President Olusegun Obasanjo did.