By Ahmed Ahmed
A political group known as New Northern Initiative for Growth has condemned the purported moves by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) to endorse the People Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar for the 2023 presidency.
The State Coordinator of the group, Alkassim Abdulkadir, who spoke on behalf of the National President of the group, Lawal Sahabi,at press conference on Tuesday at the NUJ Secretariat in Bauchi.
He said that Atiku is not the preferred candidate of the North, hence supporting him on the basis of sentiments will put the region in Jeopardy.
According to the National President, Atiku who has risen on the goodwill of the northerners cannot boast of any project he has executed or influenced while in office as former Vice-president of the country.
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“We are using this opportunity to ask the so-called elders to explain to Northerners where they derived their mandate to impose a single candidate on the entire region.
“We are also challenging them to explain what criteria they used to arrive at Atiku as a candidate for the North, they should define how his contributions to the growth of the region qualified him to become the candidate for the north”
“They should prove that they are true leaders of the region by telling the people what Atiku has ever done in the interest of the region and the country at large. By every reasonable assessment, Atiku has never had any concern for the North rather, he has exploited the region’s resources.
“It is his blind desperation to secure the presidency at all cost that Atiku is sponsoring capitalist northern leaders with no record of achieving anything for the region in order to manipulate northerners to believe the lie that he is a true northerner with good intentions whereas the opposite is the case.
“The Capital-minded northern elders are so blinded by their acquisitive tendencies around ripping the Nation with Atiku’s main agenda of privatizing major public assets.
According to him, It is important for the people of the North to refuse to be drawn into the lost battle by putting all its eggs in one basket, especially knowing Atiku’s antecedents of non-performance during his tenure as vice president which has made him unreliable, this is a major risk for the North to take,” he said.
