Ciroma.
A coalition of some Northern youth groups, under the auspices of Arewa Citizens Action for Change, on Sunday criticised the procedure adopted by the Mallam Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Leaders Political Forum in the selection of a former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as the Northern consensus candidate for the presidential primaries of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
The ACAC in a communiqué issued at the end of its meeting in Kaduna, declared that “it is obvious that the choice of the committee was unpopular” and insisted that the committee owed the people of the region some explanations on how Atiku was selected.
Another Northern youth organisation, Arewa Defense League, however, alleged that the ACAC was being misguided by some governors, who were working in concert with the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to divide the North.
ACAC Leader, Alhaji Nastura Ashir, who read the coalition’s communiqué to newsmen, queried the voting process that produced Atiku, arguing that it was unthinkable that the Ciroma committee had to resort to voting in spite of the fact that it met with relevant stakeholders and documented their views on the matter.
Ashir said, “The committee should therefore tell the public the extent of their consultation and the various input they collected and the extent which those inputs influenced their decision.
“This aspect is critical because the public is concerned that either the committee did not consult the relevant stakeholders from among the young or the older classes or it refused to be guided by the inputs collected from those that were consulted; otherwise the decision to adopt a suspicious secret ballot option would not have arisen at all.
“We maintain that a lot of interested individuals and groups who could have offered honest, selfless and broad minded advice to the committee were never consulted.”
The group therefore declared the procedures adopted by the committee as defective.
The coalition warned that if Ciroma committee failed to explain the process that led to the selection of Atiku in the next three days, it would be left with no other choice than to “embark on a more credible, transparent and acceptable process of selecting a consensus candidate for the North, which will cut across party line.”
However, the President of the Arewa Defense League, Alhaji Murtala Abubakar who described the decision of the Ciroma committee as commendable, stressed that ACAC was being misguided.
He noted that as northerners and citizens of Nigeria, members of the ACAC had the right to express their views democratically, “however, I think they are being misguided.
“What is happening is coming from some governors in the North who have decided that they will not support what is popular in the north.These governors are trying to scuttle what Ciroma has done; they are working in connivance with former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
“The ACAC should be wary of this plot by these governors and Obasanjo who are working against the economic and political interest of the North. This was demonstrated by Obasanjo himself during his tenure as president” Abubakar warned.
Source:http://www.punchng.com
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