2023 Presidency: Arewa Group Lampoons Ohanaeze Over Gov Yahaya Bello

The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, has lampooned Ohanaeze groups for endorsing a “contraption called Rotational Presidency”, that it said cannot be found anywhere in the nation’s Constitution.

The AYCF was responding to the press conference by Ohanaeze, which rejected the position of Governor Yahaya Bello that Rotational Presidency cannot be found anywhere in the Nigerian Constitution, urging the nation’s stakeholders to stick to “merit” of any Presidential candidate as against his ethno-regional or religious leanings.

In a media release on Monday, the AYCF said both the Northern leaders and youths of the region have come a long way and therefore “cannot be intimidated by anyone or stampeded into sheepishly supporting a regional candidate for the nation’s 2023 Presidency”.

The AYCF described as laughable the claim by Ohanaeze that Governor Yahaya Bello was still a student when Nigerians like the late Dr. Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar and others advised that power rotation should be adopted.

“Is it not a shame that Ohanaeze is canvassing for a mere 23-year old advice not backed by any law known to part politics while questioning the young Governor’s legitimate advice for full democratic process of majority having their way?” AYCF queried.

Ohanaeze’s argument that former President Goodluck Jonathan also enjoyed the Presidency due to the rotation principle, the AYCF said that was not enough reason because it was not even the turn of Jonathan’s South-South region to produce President at that point in time.

On Ohanaeze’s emphasis that “morality” is ahead of constitutionality, the AYCF said the Ndigbo group has goofed, saying nowhere in a democratic system does moral consideration supercede the Constitution.

AYCF in the statement, also reacted to Ohanaeze’s claim that the recent meeting of Southern Governors Forum endorsed power rotation to South in 2023 saying “that does not give Ohanaeze the licence to ignore simple democratic processes”.

“We, in the AYCF wish to remind Ohanaeze that, the North cannot be intimidated ever again, because we’re now more politically-conscious of our democratic rights and freedom and fully prepared to legitimately assert ourselves.”

“As for those threatening that they would pull out of Nigeria if the next President did not come from the South, it’s nonsensical because they don’t need to advertise that they’re leaving, when there are provisions of the Constitution that gives them simple, legal means of breaking away. These empty threats won’t force the North to abandon democratic means of producing Nigerian leaders” AYCF stressed.

“And we dare any political party in this country to try zoning the 2023 Presidency to any ethnic group or region; or try to abandon the democratic process of producing elected leaders for the Nigerian democratic space”, the AYCF warned.