2023 Presidency: Arewa Youth Clamours For Southern Presidency

By Akinwale Kasali

There seems to be a crack in the Youth Wing of the Northern Arewa Youth Forum.

Contrary to the call by the Yerima Shettima led Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, that a Northerner must emerge as the President come 2023, there seems to a wind of change, following the call by the Arewa Youth Consultative Movement, AYCM, that come 2023, they are pitching their tent and openly supporting a Southern Candidate.

The Group said the bane of Insecurity, strangulation of government work, corruption, disregard for the rule of law, marginalisation, nepotism and the trampling on the fundamental human rights of the ordinary citizen has become the order of the day in Nigeria today by the All Progressives Congress, APC, led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The AYCM stressed that they were supporting a southern presidency in 2023 because the northern political elite had failed the North and Nigeria. The group said a South-South presidency in 2023 would be desirable.

In a press conference at the Arewa House, Kaduna on Thursday, the spokesman for the group, Abdullahi Balarabe, said the North needs to allow other geopolitical zones space to also govern, adding that a youthful southern president remained the choice of the youths of the North in 2023.

He said, “It is obviously clear that our country is on a threshold, and the crossroad to which we have found ourselves is very pitiable.

“The issue of insecurity, strangulation of government work, corruption , disregard for the rule of law , marginalisation , nepotism and the trampling of the fundamental human rights of the ordinary citizen has become the order of the day .

“These anomalies that have stunted our growth as a nation since independence is clearly as a result of misgovernance occasioned by the selection of favoured incompetent persons into the helms of affairs.

“Elections are not free and the issues of our common interests have been thrown to the dogs .

“There is no even distribution amongst the various classes of citizens in terms of leadership.

On New year’s day, a Group under the  coalition of Youth Groups in the North had suggested a power shift to the southern part of the country, particularly, the South-South geopolitical zone in  2023, which has also been affirmed by AYCM.