The Northern Elders Forum has said it would not allow President Goodluck Jonathan to polarise leaders of the North ahead of the February general elections. The forum, which had expressed its support for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), said it would not allow the Tanko-Yakassai-led Northern Elders Council, which is backing Jonathan for the second term to succeed. Both the Deputy Chairman of the NEF, Dr. Paul Unongo, and the forum’s spokesperson, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who spoke to SUNDAY PUNCH in separate interviews, condemned the activities of the council, which, according them, were against the general wish of northerners. Abdullahi, an ex-Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, stated that the NEC was not following the interest the North. He claimed that some of the northern elders could not walk freely in some parts of the North for supporting Jonathan. “I challenge Tanko Yakassai and walk the streets of Kano.
I will take a street and he should take another one in Kano, and let us see what will happen. “These are petro-dollar elders. Some of these elders that visit the President are the ones who don’t know how a soup smells but they know how a dollar smells. They only smell dollars wherever they are but we are not interested in dollars; we are interested in the welfare of our people,” he said. Abdullahi backed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent criticisms of the Jonathan-led administration. He said what Obasanjo said about the incumbent government was true. Speaking on Jonathan’s recent comment that some elder statesmen were behaving like motor park touts, Abdullahi said, “My reply to him (Jonathan), as I once said, is that: If you go to a motor park, there are vehicle owners that are touts and there are pick-pockets; they belong to the pick-pocket group. “If he is referring to my friend – Obasanjo, I will tell him that there may be touts in the motor park but, there are also pick-pockets. He should understand what I mean by that. “Obasanjo said there is corruption; is there no corruption? He said there is insecurity; is there no insecurity? There is nothing to argue. He (Obasanjo) may have his faults. The fact that he might have made some mistakes does not mean that he should not point out the mistakes of others who are currently on seat.” Similarly, Unongo said Jonathan had tried his best but not the extent of becoming Nigeria’s president again. He stated that elders in the North had informed Jonathan about their opposition to his re-election bid. He said while the President had insisted to run for another term, the elders would not support him. In a related development, a National Executive Council member of the ACF, Mohammed Abdulrahman, has criticised Jonathan for telling the NEC delegation that it was mischievous for anyone to say he hates the North. Abdulrahman, in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, described such as fancy talk, saying the President had not realised the enormity of the insecurity and poverty in the North. He said, “It is a last-minute effort by the Jonathan because he found out that it is Boko Haram that has brought down his administration. That is why they quickly worked out some fancy talk. He is wasting his time. “Did he not swear to the safety of lives and property and the security of the boundaries of Nigeria and its sovereignty? The moment you have failed in that, you have failed in everything. “If anyone tries to harm an American, not even within his country, the United States would fight as if it was a war. Everything Jonathan said is last-minute fancy talk.” Abdulrahman also berated the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, for asking the North to wait till 2019 for presidency. Fayose had recently described Buhari as a stooge for the party’s national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, saying four years was not too long for the North to wait for power to return to the region. Abdulrahman, however, described Fayose as a newcomer on Nigeria’s political scene. “People like Fayose don’t understand Nigeria. I, on the other hand, was there to fight for Chief Moshood Abiola to be president in 1993. I fought the entire northern establishment to support him. I even fought against the northern and military establishments for Jonathan in 2011. “All these people talking are newcomers to the state we are – in the Nigerian political spirit. Money has become part of our political process and life. Corruption has eaten into the fabric of our country. Nigeria is no longer about service to the people. It is the struggle for wealth and riches,” Abdulrahman said.
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