The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has admitted that they made mistake in telling Northerners to vote for President Buhari in 2015, stating that their choice candidate for 2023 election will be based only on competence not region or religion.
Newsonline reports that NEF Spokesman, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, said the mistake the North made in voting Buhari without asking him his blueprint was a mistake which was responsible for the poor governance affecting mostly the North.
NEF said, “What we promise not to do this time around was not to repeat what we did in 2015 and say ‘Vote for only Sai Baba” where we escort him to the villa but failed to sit him down and ask what he planned to do. It would no longer be about fixing the economy, security and the fight against Boko Haram, They must be specific.
“Buhari got away with it in 2015 and in 2019, we campaigned against him, saying this time he has failed and won’t be given another chance. Today, look at where the country is. We are not going to make that mistake again.”
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Hakeem who stated this on Channels Television Politics programme on Sunday said among the major contestants for the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Bole Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), will be subjected to rigorous interrogation before any of them will be endorsed by the North.
Ahmed said that it would not be business and game of tribe and religion as usual, but each candidate should be ready to face serious interrogation on what he has and how he would save the country and North from the many problems confronting the nation.
He added, “We will subject all candidates including Atiku, Tinubu, Obi through a rigorous process and they had better be willing because, believe me, we carry the responsibility on our shoulders to advise people in the north where to go. I am not saying this to impress anybody. We will exercise that responsibility seriously.
“At this stage, our options are open. We will not vote on a narrow prism like where (candidates) come from. I speak for the elders’ forum. There was no point we said only northern candidates will be considered. We don’t see the north in isolation. We see ourselves as related to other parts of Nigeria.”
He maintained, “I don’t know what the other parts of the country are doing but the North is not just going to vote for any candidate unless we are convinced that he has done some serious thinking about what he is going to do for this country.”
The NEF Spokesman said the choice candidate after the interrogation must be sound in mental health, and physical health and must have intellect capacity and willingness to tap into some of the brightest brains in the country to solve the country’s problems.
“But we need to know the presidential candidate’s mental health, physical, intellect capacity and his willingness to tap into some of the brightest brains available and his sensitivity to a number of key issues that are vital to our survival as a country,” Ahmed said.
