There are indications that as the 2023 general election inches closer, elders from the northern part of the country are in a fix over their choice among the presidential candidates.
The presidential poll billed to take place on February 25, 2023 has Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as the four leading candidates
Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is the reason why the elders are yet to announce their choice among the presidential hopefuls.
The group had supported President Muhammadu Buhari to win the 2015 election but later worked against his reelection in 2019.
NEF had in September last year said it would subject candidates of various political parties seeking northern votes to a rigorous interrogation exercise until they are convinced about who has the capacity to fix the country.
Spokesman of the forum, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, who stated this when he appeared on ‘Politics Today,’ a popular programme on Channels Television, noted that the northern elders made a terrible mistake in 2015 when they asked the people to give their bloc votes to Buhari without demanding his blueprint.
“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,” Baba-Ahmed had stated.
Earlier in September last year, chairman of NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, had at a book launch in Kaduna, disclosed the qualities expected of a candidate the North will support in the forthcoming presidential poll.
He said the North would not support a candidate who seeks to benefit from strategies that exploit the ethnic and religious diversity of the region.
“The North will participate in all political and electoral activities as equals and with respect to other Nigerians who respect us. The North wants leaders who will lead with integrity, competence, compassion and the fear of God. We will not support a candidate that fails to convince that he will radically improve the quality of governance and the integrity of leaders. Second, Northerners will not be intimidated into making choices that do not improve the chances of real changes in their current circumstances,” Prof Abdullahi had stated.