Five days to the commencement of the general elections, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has advised Nigerians to ensure that the country’s next president is not someone with history of corruption.
Charging the citizens to also shun ethnic, religious and geographical considerations in determining the incoming administration, the northern elders, in a statement, yesterday, by the group’s Secretary General, Alhaji Murtala Aliyu, observed: “At a time like this, ACF has always taken the liberty to draw attention of Nigerians to the right qualities they should look for when deciding whom to cast their votes for.
“At every occasion, selection criteria we recommend are very clear and objective, including party manifestos, character and track records of candidates. Voters will do great disservice to themselves if they were to vote into offices persons they know, or should know, have no capacity to perform or with questionable character.
“Voters are also always advised to shun those unhealthy schemes, whereby a president or state governor handpicks a successor. Nothing promotes entrenched corruption, cronyism and poor leadership more than those dubious arrangements.”
The socio-cultural group stressed: “A cardinal and national goal of our great and dear country includes the creation of a nation in which: ‘though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.’ It means that in our search for good leaders, we must cast our nets far beyond our ethnic, religious or geographical interests.
“A leader does not have to come from our tribe, zone, region or religious persuasion. We should seek for leaders that best cater for our national interests and who are elected within the tenets of democracy.
“The tenets that allow people to choose leaders, who will best serve interest of generality of Nigerians and not their personal or those of their ethnic or religious groups.”
The ACF scribe added: “When 17 state governors from the southern part and across 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 (APC), came out with the announcement that they had committed themselves to ensuring 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 would serve to entrench the principle of North/South power rotation in the politics 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 its citizens, and each citizen has 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.”
