…Says President’s Actions Capable Of Destroying Nigerian Unity
A Norther youth group, the Arewa Youth Solidarity Movement, AYSM, has knocked President Muhammadu Buhari, over his policies on the redesigning of the naira notes and the persistent fuel scarcity bedeviling the nation ahead of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly election.
The open letter, addressed to President Buhari and signed by six representatives of the youth group, Bello Abdulahi and Sani Yusuf for the North-West, Suleiman Mohammed and Hassan Sango for the North-Central; and Ahmed Tukur and Abdulkareem Sadiq for the North-East, accuse the President of working in cahoot with hawks in Aso Rock and the opposition and hand in hand with the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emifiele, to not only jeopardise the fragile unity of the country, but also the political future of young Norther politicians, who they said sacrifice everything to support Buhari to become President.
They also accused him of breaching the unwritten arrangement if power rotation between the North and South of Nigeria.
Below is the text of the open letter:
Your Excellency, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
We regret to write this letter to you to express our anger and disappointment over the way you have been handling state matters, particularly your contrived fuel scarcity and naira redesigning policies, in recent times.
We intentionally used the words “your contrived policies” in this context, because we are sure that you conceived these policies in cahoots with a select cohorts of the people that live on you without the knowledge of your party’s leadership.
Unfortunately, these policies are capable of burning the nation down and make innocent Nigerians suffer, while your party is held responsible for your conduct and harsh policies, which the party knows nothing about in your attempt at the contrived Northernisation of the Nigerian Presidency, which we, ordinary Northerners, condemn in the strongest terms.
We are particularly pained because we young people from Northern Nigeria once saw you as a pride and role model, almost as a god, particularly considering the discipline that you brought to bear as a Nigerian Army General, well trained in the best tradition of the military, which sees the unity of our great country as a primary responsibility of the Nigerian Armed Forces. You demonstrated this as a young Nigerian officer, while pursuing a career in the military. You also brought this discipline to bear as military Head of State. The respect and honour in which we held you was responsible for our supports during the times you contested for President on many occasions, without success, until the unthinkable happened in alliance with some patriotic Nigerians from the South West, who shared same vision with us to see you emerge as the democratically elected President to preside over our affairs in Nigeria.
However, events in the last few months have demonstrated clearly that you have betrayed our trust in the manner you have handled very sensitive state matters which ought to be of utmost importance to you, to enable you live up to your image as a disciplined military officer with an eye to preserve the unity of the country, where all Nigerians see themselves as brothers and sisters.
Your Excellency, some of us in the North had never had the opportunity of travelling to Lagos all our lives until your primary election at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, in December 2014, where you emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Even though, many of us at that time did not belong to any political party, we struggled to save money to make the journey to Lagos, just because we love you. Some of us travelled in the night, in trailers struggling to share space with rams and goats, to witness your emergence in Lagos. We slept on bare floors in solidarity with you. We listened to our leaders and elders about the laudable roles played by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ensure your emergence as the APC candidate, after discovering that you were a better candidate than Atiku Abubakar, who we learnt had political relationship with Tinubu in the past.
We cannot claim ignorance of the gentleman agreement that power will be rotating between North and South, as recommended by the National Constitutional Conference and adopted by both the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the APC.
We Northern youths believe and have faith in that arrangement, which will preserve the unity and peace of our dear country.
We believe in the power rotation between North and South. Your party is in power today, the other parties will also have their turns tomorrow, but we believe in the sanctity of power rotation for the unity and peace of the country.
We are therefore shocked to observe in the last few weeks that you have changed completely from what we knew you to be, as a man of his words and a disciplined elderly statesman, who won’t compromise his integrity for whatever pressure, to now constitute a threat to the unity of Nigeria.
We never knew you to be a selfish man, but latest developments have convinced us that you are so, with due respect, Your Excellency.
Your Excellency, you will wonder at the extremity of our outbursts; we have no choice, but to come out forcefully to express our disappointment and anger on how you are deliberately creating problems for young elements in the North, on how to relate faithfully with their Southern counterparts in politics in future. With the way you are handling state matters of recent, you are creating distrust among Northern and Southern Nigerians.
When you were at our age, you spent that youthful age to preserve the unity of Nigeria by fighting in a brutal civil war to hold the country together, the dividends of which we are all enjoying today, and which enabled you to be elected President by the cooperation and support of our Southern brothers and sisters. We are therefore shocked that at your old age, you are now promoting circumstances that can provoke a war that will destroy the relationship between the North and South.
We have listened to some decent elders in the North, notably, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai and Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, among several others, on how they ventilated their anger over your outrageous clandestine support for the breach of the agreement reached at the National Conference and adopted by both the PDP and the APC in the nation’s power rotation between the North and South, by hiding behind some economic policies, supposedly for the benefit of all Nigerians. In any case, we appreciate all the Northern Progressives Governors for standing firm in their support for power rotation to the South.
While your recent policies may appear good, we are wise enough to note that such economic policies, no matter how good in the long run, are not undertaken and should not be undertaken during election year. But for the reasons best known to you and those who forced the ideas down your throat, you agreed to be part of the script to put the party that helped you to power in jeopardy, shame and defeat.
Unfortunately, all these hawks pushing you to create problems for your party are elements whi are working with the opposition; and they are people who can’t win councillorship election in their constituencies. No politician, who is prepared for election victory will attempt what you are doing in an election year, not even in the Banana republics, where anything can happen.
Unfortunately for the Arewa young politicians, other sections of the country have now seen your action as a deliberate act, orchestrated by the entire Northern people, to retain power in the North at all costs, which has potential for hostility towards us Northern young elements in politics. We young people in the North are not with you on this, sir.
Your Excellency, you are not being fair to us young elements in the North. How can you serve out your terms peacefully with Southern Nigerians, and all you have for us in the North is to have hostile Southern counterparts to contend with after your departure? We wonder why you are pretending or behaving as if you don’t understand the voting behaviours of Nigerian voters after the presidential election victory. If those pushing you won’t tell you the truth, the truth is that whichever party wins the Presidency takes victory in other elections, in a winner-takes-all election behaviour among Nigerian voters. If the anger you are stoking against your party manifests in this kind of a scenario, you are not only putting the chances of your party at risk, as the ruling party, you are also putting the political fortunes of thousands of APC’s Northern candidates at the governorship, National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly at greater risks, as a bandwagon effect of forced victory you seem to be plotting against your party.
Yet, these people you want to make victims of this conspiracy are the people who toiled day and night to ensure your victory, working with our compatriots in the South to make your victory happen.
We are aware of the activities of those who lost in your party’s primaries, and how they have held you prisoner in Aso Rock, taking critical decisions for you.
The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, a bosom friend of the PDP vice presidential candidate, Ifeanyi Okowa, from the same Agbor, in Delta, has been widely reported working for the PDP through General Ibrahim Babangida, who sold the policies on naira swap and dislocation in fuel supply chain, which you are faithfully implementing, and which they know will have negative effects on the chances of your party in the general election.
Babangida is a member of the opposition. He has a willing tool in Emefiele, after losing the opportunity to contest in your party. This is a fact known to all Nigerians. These people are selfish. They are working to ensure the downfall of your party to their advantage. They don’t mean well for young Nigerians, who have over the years formed alliances on nation building through students union activities, among other relationships.
That you defer to the cabals in Aso Rock is not in the best interest of the young people in the North. The totality of how you have handled the fuel and naira redesigning policies points to a deliberate action to make Nigerians develop hatred towards your party, so that Nigerians will vote against your party, which many of our young people all defected to because of you as a shining light in the North. They all left their former political parties to join you in the APC, where they had hoped to pursue their political careers to support your welfarist policies for Nigerians. The reason why you are joining those that are plotting the downfall of your party beats our imagination. You are basically not fighting for the interest of the North; you are creating a threat to the political survival of young people in the North.
People will query our interest in having your party to continue to govern Nigeria. The reason is that for now, the APC is a party predominant in the North. This is the party our people hope to use to achieve their political aims to serve the people in the North. There is no conference where it was decided that the North must hold on to power against the agreement on power rotation. The APC Northern governors had spoken the minds of Northerners on power rotation to the South. That position has not changed. In the next eight years, we will be talking about power coming back to the North. Whichever party, APC or PDP, that has a better candidate will be supported to represent the North at the federal level.
Your Excellency, we feel so sad that after we risked our lives, fighting to ensure your victory to be President, at your departure from Aso Rock, you embarked on actions that will force Nigerians to hate your party and our current APC leaders, who you will leave behind in the party to be stranded politically. This is not fair, to say the least.
We had thought that you would do everything possible to endear Nigerians to your party and not creating conditions that will make Nigerians despise the party. We note in particular the sacrifices made by your presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in ensuring your victory, after unsuccessful presidential contests in the past, more so, his role as a father figure to a vast population of Northern young people in Nigerian politics.
Today, Nigerians and other decent people of the world are outraged by your blatant disregard for the ruling of the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, which ordered a suspension of the naira policy until the issue is disposed of in court. Unfortunately, fellow Nigerians in the South have interpreted your conduct as a deliberate action to stoke anger against your party so that a Northern candidate in the opposition party can win the election as a Northern agenda. This is dangerous for the unity of Nigeria. We don’t want a Northern Agenda that will endanger the political careers of young men and women of Northern extraction. The signals already coming from the Eastern Nigeria are dangerous and ominous for the nation’s unity. In these trying times, the South West is the only stabilising force that is responsible for the little unity we are enjoying in the country. We wonder what will become of that fragile unity with your behaviour suggesting that you are prepared to show ingratitude for their support that ensured that you succeeded to be elected the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Can you fault Nigerians down South thinking that way? Never! With due respect sir, you are the first President in the history of human race who will support and promote acts that can set voters against your party in an election year. We are the more bothered because at the end of the day, Northern young politicians will find it impossible to extract trust from their Southern counterparts in any future political alliances.
Your Excellency, in a nutshell, you have not only betrayed the trust of all Nigerians who worked for your victory, you have also endangered the political future of young Northern elements in Nigerian politics. When exactly are we in the North going to be free from the accusation by other Nigerians that Northern leaders love to create crisis situations anytime power is going South, but a smooth transition when power moves from South to the North.
But we want to place it on record that we shall hold you personally responsible for whatever fate befalls Nigeria, as tension over fuel and naira redesigning chokes Nigerians ahead of the February 25 presidential election. We shall also hold you responsible for whatever becomes the fate of young Northerners in Nigerian politics over your divisive conduct, in cahoots with the hawks who have no political reckoning in their constituencies.
We want to assure all Nigerians that the young people in the North have no hand in President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy implementation, which has the potential to divide Nigeria. We believe in the policies and morals of Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and Mallam Aminu Kano in driving Nigeria’s unity through honesty, discipline and integrity. We never believe in the desecration of the law by disobeying the Supreme Court in pursuit of our political goals.
May Allah bless Nigeria.
Signed:
(1) Bello Abdullahi (North West)
(2) Sani Yusuf (North West)
(3) Suleiman Mohammed (North Central)
(4) Hassan Sango ( North Central)
(5) Ahmed Tukur (North East)
(6) Abdulkareem Sadiq (North East)
