The Northern Solidarity Movement (NSM) has said that North will wait till<\/p>\n
2019 when it would field a young and vibrant candidate for the position of
\npresident.
\nThe group, in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Alhaji Isa Abubakar,
\nsaid its position was informed by the recent comments credited to
\nspokesperson of Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Professor Ango Abduallahi to
\nthe effect that the North has endorsed General Muhammadu Buhari as the
\nregion\u2019s candidate for the 2015 presidential election.
\nThe group said, \u201cWe note with amusement the comments recently credited to
\nProfessor Ango Abdullahi, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF),
\nthat the North has endorsed General Muhammadu Buhari as the Northern
\ncandidate for the 2015 elections.
\n\u201cFor the avoidance of doubt, nothing can be farther from the truth because
\nthe North never met anywhere to endorse any candidate.
\n\u201cIndeed, it is widely accepted that after the second term of President
\nGoodluck Jonathan, the north shall produce the next president of Nigeria
\nin 2019.
\n\u201cFor such a northern candidate to emerge in 2019, we are ready to wait to
\nenable President Jonathan run his second term and pass the baton to us.
\nThe present attempt by Buhari is not only a misadventure but a guaranteed
\nfailure.\u201d
\nThe group further said that only Professor Abdullahi and his coterie of
\nfriends within the NEF had endorsed Buhari, stressing that \u201cthe rest of us
\nwho are clear-sighted and pragmatic northerners have made up our minds to
\nwait until 2019 when the coast will be clear to field a younger and more
\nvibrant candidate who will not be carrying a baggage of having been a
\ndictator, a loser of three previous elections, certificate scandal and one
\nwhose health is suspect.
\n\u201cWe will choose a candidate who will be cerebral enough to know that
\nsoldiers cannot be deployed to fight economic problems; one who will match
\nintegrity with a lucid and analytical mind; and one who will know that in
\nthis century women are partners with men in national development.
\n\u201cWe will field a candidate who will not only sustain President Jonathan\u2019s
\nAgriculture Transformation Agenda, but also improve on it. Under Jonathan
\nbetween 2012 and 2014, 10.5 million farmers were empowered across the
\nNorthern states, constituting 75 per cent of a total of the 14 million
\nfarmers who benefited from the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme and
\nE-Wallet programme.
\n\u201cThe highest numbers of beneficiaries are from the North West with 4.2
\nmillion beneficiaries, North Central with 3.2 million and 2.9 million from
\nthe North East respectively.
\n\u201cStill on agriculture, which we all know is the mainstay of the Northern
\neconomy, for the first time in our history, available statistics show that
\nin 2013 alone 1.1 million metric tonnes of dry season rice was produced
\nacross 10 Northern states; ensuring that over 250,000 farmers and youths
\nin those states are now profitably engaged in farming even during the dry
\nseason.\u201d
\nThe group continued: \u201cMoreover, as it has been pointed out by some
\nobservers, the fact that yam farmers are said to be contributing N5
\nbillion to the campaign efforts of a particular candidate is a testament
\nto the fact that President Jonathan\u2019s agricultural policies are producing
\npositive results; and we know the bulk of yam farmers are in the North.
\n\u201cIn the field of Education, apart from the fact that President Jonathan
\nestablished the only Federal University in Buhari\u2019s home state of Katsina,
\nit is also a verifiable fact that on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, President
\nJonathan was in Sokoto State to commission the first of over 150
\npurpose-built schools specifically designed to take hundreds of thousands
\nof our children (Almajiris) off the streets to give them proper education.
\n\u201cWithout going into a lengthy dissertation on what President Jonathan has
\ndone for the North, we have shown that Professor Abdullahi and his NEF
\nfriends do not and can never speak for the North. We Northerners can
\nattest to what President Jonathan has achieved in the region and we fully
\nsupport him for a second term.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Solidarity Movement (NSM) has said that North will wait till 2019 when it would field a young and vibrant candidate for the position of president. The group, in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n