From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Pan-Arewa socio-political organization, Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), has maintained that no amount of threat and intimidation from the South would stop the region from fielding a candidate in next year’s presidential election.
CNG’s Board of Trustees Chairman, Nastura Ashir Shariff, spoke at the Maitama Sule Leadership Lecture Series, which took place at the Bayero University Kano (BUK), at the weekend.
“No amount of threat and intimidation from the South would change the minds of northerners regarding zoning as enumerated in the CNG’s Triple C formula that the next President can come from any part of the country so long as he possesses the required competence, capacity and character,” he said.
Shariff, specifically, noted that he was suspicious of a meeting held by a group known as the 2022 Committee to map a new consensus for national rebirth, explaining that majority of the participants contributed to socio-economic problems bedeviling the country.
He said, “We are suspicious of the intentions of the meeting given the antecedents of the participants of many of the people involved and would soon come out with our formal position on it.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Governor of Kano State, Professor Hafiz Abubakar, who decried high level political chicanery, charged the youths to wake up and arm themselves with relevant skills and education to change the narrative.
“The money politics system is bad, that is why we are here. We are playing a very wrong, very dirty and very unproductive politics,” he said.
CNG’s spokesperson, Abdul Azeez Suleiman, explained that the Maitama Sule Leadership Lecture Series represented a major step up in the activities of the group chiefly in mobilising every significant component in the region.
He added, “Students, as an organized body, have had and shall expectedly continue to have considerable impact on Nigerian and the global political situations.”