The spokesman of the the Northern Elders Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has said there was no crack in the Forum following the purported endorsement of the Peoples Democratic Party’s consensus candidates.
According to Baba-Ahmed, the consensus arrangement of the PDP had the consent and blessings of the NEF’s leader, Prof Ango Abdullahi, adding that the entire Forum supported the former Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
The former Secretary of the Independent National Electoral Commission stated that, “We are loyal him (Abdullahi).”
The NEF spokesman, while speaking in an interview with journalists on the side-line of an event organised by the Nigerian Labour Congress in Kaduna, on Wednesday, insisted that, “What he did on the consensus was a good thing. What he wanted to do is very clear. He did what he did as Professor Ango Abdullahi and not as a convener or Chairman of the Northern Elders Forum.”
“But we are not against him. He’s a highly respected Nigerian. He’s committed to good governance. We are loyal to him.
“There’s has never been a crack in the Northern Elders Forum and there will never be a crack. Our leader is Professor Ango Abdullahi. He is respected.”
On the state of the nation, Baba-Ahmed said what the country was going through in the last decades was because “we elect poor leaders. I think it is not their fault but also our fault too.
“Something is wrong with us as a country. We don’t elect good leaders who care about the country, instead we elect leaders who only care about themselves.
“Nigerians have to be careful. (It is) either we elect good leaders in 2023 or those who will come will be worse than the present crop of leaders.”
Earlier, the Kaduna State Chairman of the NLC, Ayuba Magaji, while addressing the participants, said the title of the pre-Workers’ Day symposium: ‘Labour politics and the quest for good governance and development in Nigeria,’ was carefully chosen in view of the present reality.
The NLC boss, who was represented by the state’s Vice Chairman, Shehu Usman, noted that, “good governance have eroded our country as the present day leaders seem to be overwhelmed with these challenges,” saying, “honestly speaking they don’t have solutions to the current problems.”
“We want to encourage our members to participate in active politics. Everyone can be a member of the political parties. Anyone can be an agent of the change we aspire for,” he added.
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