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Presidency is North’s birthright till 2023 – Yerima
ALHAJI Shettima Usman Yerima is the President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF). In this interview, Yerima warns against Nigeria falling into another constitutional crisis that could lead to the Doctrine of Necessity that ushered in the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, then vice president and a southerner, after his principal, President Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner, took gravely ill. Meanwhile, the AYCF leader says the presidency of the country is the birthright of the North till 2023.
Yes. We are disappointed. Nigerians are disappointed. The Buhari administration is a failure. It is a monumental failure because this is not what Nigerians expected when they gave him the mandate in 2015.
I think we are going to bring an alternative in 2019. We have to bring a new order in the country because we cannot afford to have a president who is not in charge of the affairs. This is coupled with the fact that some of us looked at his age ahead of 2015 and came up with the reservation that it was not a good idea to have a man of his age to lead a country like Nigeria with a population of about 200 million people. People thought we were undermining him at that time but we said no because somebody of Buhari’s age would find it difficult managing his personal affairs not to talk of the affairs of a huge country like ours. We have nothing against President Buhari personally but we believe somebody of his age should be home to manage his health. And age is not even the problem because, when you look at global events, the way things are turning around universally, you will agree with me that we need, in the saddle, somebody who is in tune with the global reality. We need people who are digitalization compliant to turn things around in terms of intellectual capacity, in terms of globalization and people who will be in touch with the current world order. We need somebody that is agile and knowledgeable enough to move round the world with his counterparts. For now in Nigeria, that is not the case. And I don’t think we are making any headway in that direction. And the worst thing is that, for government to look for capable hands that can turn around things positively, it ended up picking individuals that had been out of circulation for a very long time. These outdated and spent forces constitute government and they are not doing well. Now, you can see the confusion everywhere. The reality is not all about Buhari as a person. The reality is about nature that is taking its toll on him coupled with the situation of his health that nobody knows. I am afraid we may fall into a constitutional crisis we were plunged into during the Yar’ Adua government. And that would not augur well for us as a country.
On that, I am neither here nor there because unfolding events in Nigeria today give room for concern. Over and over, we have proved to be good in hoping. And every problem of yesterday becomes small compared to what happens today. It has been a case of our yesterday being better than our today. And the problems, rather than decreasing, are regrettably increasing. And if care is not taken, we are going to run into constitutional crisis of an unimaginable proportion and can be worse than the one we encountered during the Yar’Adua regime. The acting president has limitations. And Mr. President, who is our collective property, we don’t know the situation of things with him. No matter how anybody wants to keep his situation under secrecy, it doesn’t work that way because it is our right to know what happens to him. What is being spent to keep him abroad is tax payers’ money. The money belongs to Nigerians. And it is their right to know exactly the state of his health. One time you hear Lai Mohammed saying one thing. Another time you hear Femi Adesina saying another thing while someone else later is saying a different thing and all of them are working with the same establishment! It gives room for a lot of concern. Our prayer is his safe return. But we have to know what is happening because we cannot fold our arms till we run into another constitutional crisis and start to look for another Doctrine of Necessity. We, northerners, need to put people in the right places with a view to finding answers to our problems. We need to have a smooth transition to 2019 and then 2023. The North is unstoppable for now and we cannot afford to take any chances.