From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, a group of supporters of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, converged in Gombe and called on Emefiele to contest for Nigeria’s president.
The group, ‘The Unified Northern Nigeria Youths Forum’, said that Emefiele has the capacity to salvage Nigeria as he can make hundreds of millionaires in his first four years.
‘“This is largely seen in the intervention programs he initiated as the CBN governor that is mostly targeting the development of agriculture. He initiated several intervention programs that have a greater impact on the North and Northerners,’ the group said.
Emefiele has not declared to run for the top office in 2023. However, Mohammad Salihu Danlami, the Convener of the group which is said to be made up of about 40 youths organizations from the North, said: ‘The CBN governor needs to reason with us and bury his personal interest and contest for the betterment of Nigeria.’
Danlami stated this while addressing a group of newsmen on Thursday in Gombe. He said: ‘It is an established fact, that there exists a strong nexus between poverty, human security, national insecurity, and food insecurity.
‘With Emefiele at the helm of affairs, poverty will be alleviated as well as youth restiveness and other social vices.
‘Through his interventions in agriculture and actively engaging idle youths who are a soft target for recruitment into various insurgency groups and consequently clamping down on insecurity.’
While urging stakeholders in Gombe state to stand with his group in supporting and calling for Emefiele’s presidency in 2023, Danlami said that the group see hope, vision, commitment and security for the future in the CBN governor.
‘Posterity will not judge us right and history will not be fair to us, if we as Northerners, refuse to support Dr Godwin Emefiele as our only presidential candidate in the North,’ he said.
Danlami also called on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) or whichever political party in the country to look into the possibility of adopting Emefiele as its presidential candidate for 2023.