The Northern Elders Forum has maintained that the North must retain the presidency if
Buhari’s failing health prevents him from seeking re-election in 2019.
While speaking in an exclusive interview with New Telegraph, the spokesman of Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Professor Ango
Abdullahi, disclosed that should President Muhammadu Buhari’s failing health prevents him from seeking re-election in 2019, the
North must retain the presidency.
The elder statesman stressed that the region must be allowed to field a presidential candidate through the All Progressives
Congress (APC), in 2019 should Buhari fail to seek re-election.
He said in the situation of any eventuality, the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo should
be allowed to complete the current tenure but will not be allowed to contest in 2019.
Abdullahi said, “The constitutional provision says that in the event that the president dies
in office or becomes incapacitated for one reason or the other and cannot perform the duties of his office, he will be succeeded by
the Vice president.
“But no one is in a position to know at what point he is going to recover fully and come
back to office, or whether the unexpected could happen. The northern elders insist that Osinbajo cannot replace Buhari in 2019
“If the worst case scenario happens, and Buhari is not back on seat, the constitution
is very clear that the vice president takes over.
“And what we then expect is that he will take that tenure to its logical end and from there, the politics of power sharing will take
precedence over anything else.
“When the unexpected happens, in 2019 we will be back to our position that the north
should be treated equitably and fairly. And we expect that another northern candidate will emerge as presidential candidate on the
platform of APC.”
Abdullahi lamented that the north is still marginalized in spite of the fact that Buhari is president. “To be fair and truly honest, I
will say that yes, our expectations have been far above what we saw on ground. Meaning that what we were expecting from this
government in terms of equity and justice to the north has not materialized up till now,”
he said.
According to him, the North is still being cheated in spite of the fact that one of its own is president.
“For example, if you look at both the 2016 and 2017 budgets, if you combine capital and recurrent expenditures for both years,
the North took roughly 30 per cent in spite of the fact that everybody knows that even if
it’s by one per cent, the north is more populated than the South. Even in terms of landmass, the North constitutes 75 per cent
of the landmass of this country,” he pointed out.
The NEF spokesman blamed Buhari for giving key ministries in his administration to
southerners “who don’t feel shy of looking after themselves first before the North, even
if it’s on second thoughts.”
Abdullahi said that some of the projects that should improve the living standard in the
north have been abandoned even by this administration.
“Take, for example, the Mambila Power Project, the dredging of River Niger, the Ajaokuta Steel and so on. Of course, you can
also blame past northern leaders who were in power when these projects were just brushed aside,” he added.
