2023: Northern elders disown Buhari, vow not to vote on sentiment again

The Northern Elders’ Forum has vowed not to repeat the mistake of voting for just any candidate based on sentiment in 2023 as they did during the last general elections in 2019.

Speaking on Saturday on the sideline of the meeting of northern leaders of thought and groups held at the Arewa House, Kaduna, NEF’s Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed said President Muhammadu Buhari is a disappointment to not just the North, but the entire country.

According to the NEF’s spokesman, a northerner and his southern counterpart have equal rights to vie for the nation’s exalted office in the 2023 presidential race and as such the Northern region will only vote for a competent president regardless of where s/he comes from.

Baba-Ahmed also warned that no northern presidential candidate should take the region for granted in the 2023 race, as that was how the region ended up with what he described as the ‘Buhari mistake’.

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“No northerner should take us for granted. That’s how we ended up with President Buhari. We don’t want to repeat the same mistake. If you must be a northerner who’s better than all the candidates; for us, that’s the bottom line. It’s not enough to be a northerner, you have to be the best. You have to be the best for the North and you have to be the best for the rest of Nigeria.

“We are looking for a Nigerian President. If it comes from the North, fine but he must be voted for by Nigerians and he must be good and he must be better than all the others. That’s what we are looking for.”

He, however, scored Buhari’s administration low in all aspects ranging from the worsening security, corruption to the sorry state of the nation’s economy and summed him up as a “disappointment.”