Barely three days to the presidential election, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has enjoined the federal government to deliver a fair, transparent, credible, and hitch-free election just as it urged Nigerians to as a matter of morality, “accept the principle of power rotation between the north and south.”
The forum which stated that, though, citizens have the right to choose whatever they believe to be in their best interests,
however, advised Nigerians to shun schemes that would allow a president or state governor handpicks their successor, adding that “nothing promotes entrenched corruption, cronyism and poor leadership more than such dubious arrangements.
Murtala Aliyu, ACF Secretary General, who made this declaration in Kaduna, noted in dismay that the nation will never be able to identify and select good leaders among its people so long as some dubious people are allowed to manipulate the selection of candidates and the ultimate election processes.
Against this backdrop, he advised that the Nigerian populace must learn to cast their nets far beyond ethnic, religious or geographical interests.
“A leader does not have to come from our tribe, zone, region or religious persuasion. We should seek leaders that best cater for our national interests, and who are elected within the tenets of democratic processes. The tenets that allow people to choose leaders who will best cater for the interests of the generality of the people, NOT their individual personal or the interests of their ethnic or religious groups.
“When 17 State Governors from the Southern part of Nigeria, and from different political parties met last year, and demanded that a southerner must be elected as the president of Nigeria, the heavens did not fall. It was accepted that as we are in a democracy, they were entitled to their views and opinions.
“Quite recently also, some 14 northern Governors belonging to the ruling All Progressives Congress Party, (APC), came out with the announcement that they had committed themselves to ensure that a candidate of their party from the southern part of the country is elected president of the country.
“Their reason was that the emergence and subsequent election of a person from the southern part of the country will serve to entrench the principle of North/South power rotation in Nigeria.
“Though the principle of power rotation is still largely and somewhat controversial. Nonetheless, under our democratic dispensation, we must reconcile ourselves to accepting that Nigeria is a country for all her citizens, and each citizen has the right to choose whatever he or she believes to be in the best interests of themselves and their followers. At the same time, however, they also have to accept the principle of power rotation between north and south.”
