Arewa Youth Consultative Forum on Thursday declared that the North would continue to rule the country for another four years after 2023.
The AYCF National President, Yerima Shettima, stated this in an interview.
Shettima faulted Southern Governors’ position on zoning the presidency to the South ahead of the 2023 elections.
The Southern governors had on July 5 demanded that the South should produce Nigeria’s next president in 2023 after a forum meeting in Lagos State.
The AYCF leader insisted that former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan ruled Nigeria for fourteen years in favour of the South, while the late Musa Yar’Adua and Buhari would have ruled for ten years in 2023. By this reasoning, the North has four more years to level up to the ruling time of the Southerners.
He said, “That is their personal view which is not binding on Nigerians and Northerners. We are in a democracy, and it must be practiced with all-inclusiveness; as far as we are concerned, it’s not binding on anybody, and nobody will abide by such a resolution.
“If we are talking about justice, it was not served to us as far as we are concerned, because there is no way Obasanjo would have had eight years uninterrupted, Yar’Adua only did two years then Jonathan took over as an acting president in 2009 and in 2011, Jonathan should not have contested going by the arrangement.
“North is supposed to have eight years uninterrupted, but theirs was an interruption due to natural or unforeseen circumstances we found ourselves in.
“After the death of Yar’Adua, the two years outstanding with Buhari’s eight years, if he finishes, you discover that North has only ten years; so where lies the remaining four years, where is justice?
“We insist that nobody can intimidate us, I will say it again, nobody, not even the Southern governors, can intimidate the North as it is today. The decision of the Southern governors is purely their business and is not binding on any of us in the North.”
