By Akinwale Kasali
Yerima Shettima, the National President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, has revealed that the North is not ready to relinquish power to the South come 2023, no matter what happens.
Shettima made this statement while speaking to newsmen following the submission of former Kaduna State Governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, few days ago, who that the North should relinquish power in 2023 to focus on economic power to empower its people.
In his reaction, Shettima insisted that the North will never relinquish power to anyone because former President Goodluck Jonathan breached the zoning agreement by contesting and winning the 2011 presidential election.
The Arewa Youth President added that Yero does not speak for the North, noting that his status as former governor of Kaduna State does not confer on him the leadership of the North.
Shettima: “Nobody should think that the North will just sit and handover power to the South on a kangaroo arrangement that is unconstitutional. Those days are over since 2011 that Jonathan jettisoned the previous arrangement by refusing to step down and allow a Northern candidate through consensus to come on board. That was when the South has lost it.
“The North has only ruled for nine years as against the years the South has ruled since 1999. Why is it that when Northern people speak, because they don’t believe in propaganda, people blackmail them? We are not going to break the country because of this, but we are just asking others to see reasons with us along this line, because come 2023, we (North) will cling on to power”, he concluded.
