NATIONPOLITICS

Nigeria fast collapsing under northern leadership

Socio-cultural group, Ohaneze Ndigbo has taken a swipe at Northern Governors and the region’s traditional institutions for insisting on retaining political power in 2023.

The governors, under the aegis of Northern Governors Forum (NGF), had met in Kaduna on Monday, where they voiced their opposition to a power shift.

Alex Ogbonnia, the Ohaneze Ndigbo’s spokesperson, in a statement, said that the north should be worried that Nigeria had retrogressed under its leadership.

“It is most regrettable that the North are (sic) undisturbed that Nigeria is fast collapsing under its leadership. The Forum failed to recognize that at the moment, Nigeria is confronted with the most precarious omens full of uncertainty, doubts, insecurity, and bloodshed”, said the group’s statement.

The statement added that northern Nigeria is currently plagued with multifarious acts of violence including in Plateau State, where the NGF Chairman Simon Lalong is governor.

“The chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum, Governor Simon Lalong can attest that the people of Plateau State had never in history witnessed the number of deaths as has taken place under his watch as governor.

“The banditry in Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Jigawa States is terrifying. Benue State has turned into a killing field. The states of Yobe and Borno are worst hit by the menace of Boko Haram; etc. Several schools in the North could not open because of kidnappers and millions of children are on the street as beggars.

“The Nigerian currency has lost its value. Unemployment has skyrocketed; and Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world…..and the Northern Governors, the Sultan and the Emirs instead of seeking solution to Nigerian problems were busy strategizing on how to retain power in 2023. This is most unconscionable, to say the least.

“Let it be made abundantly clear that if Presidency is a panacea to people’s problems, the North would have become the Netherlands of Africa.

“This is because the North had Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalam Abubakar, Musa Yaradua, Muhammadu Buhari, yet the problems of the North are on the increase”.

The statement explained that rotational presidency was a “gentleman agreement reached “at the NUC Conference Centre, Abuja in 1998 between the North and the South.”  It also affirmed that the south had so far shown fidelity to the agreement, as leaders of southern extraction had always handed over the rein of power to northern candidates who succeeded them at different times.

The Igbo body equally warned southern governors and political parties, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), against aligning with the northern group’s views on power rotation. It said any attempt by the PDP to zone its presidential ticket to the north, under the pretext of wrestling power from the ruling All Progressives Congress, would sound a death knell for the party.

“If by way of politics without principles the Southerners in PDP place their personal narrow interests over the interest of their people, the verdict of history will surely be harsh on them,” it stated.

 

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