Ahead of next year’s general election in Nigeria, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has asserted that northerners do not have the need for candidates from the South during the 2023 elections.
Atiku made this asseretion while responding to a question posed to him by the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, during an Interactive Session With Arewa Joint Committee held on Saturday in Kaduna State.
According to him, Northerners need to vote for him rather than a Yoruba or Igbo candidate because he’s a Pan-Nigerian with a northern extraction.
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During the interaction, when Baba-Ahmed asked Atiku why Northerners should vote for him, the PDP presidential candidate replied, ‘What the average Northerner needs is somebody who’s from the north and also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country.
‘This is what the Northerner needs, it doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate, I stand before you as a Pan-Nigerian of northern origin.’
Also, Atiku went on to posit that northern governors and the North, in general, have bought into his idea of restructuring unlike in the past when they were opposed to it. According to him, restructuring simply meant giving states more powers and responsibilities while also executing individual programmes in their respective states.
The presidential candidate made the remarks when he featured as a guest of the Arewa Joint Committee interactive sessions alongside other presidential candidates on Saturday, in Kaduna.
The former vice-president stated that part of his government’s agenda was to drive revenue and taxation, thereby moving away from an oil-based economy by making agriculture a top priority through giving the North the desired support.