The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, AYCF, on Sunday, condemned the decision of Northern governors to back a Southern Presidency in 2023.
AYCF National President, Yerima Shettima, said the decision of the Northern governors was undemocratic and disenfranchisement of Northerners.
Shettima lamented that the 11 Northern governors did not consult Northern stakeholders before zoning the Presidency to the Southern part of the Country.
In a statement he signed, the AYCF National President urged President Muhammadu Buhari to reject such a move by the governors.
According to Shettima, the decision was an attempt to deny Northerners their rights to participate in democracy.
He said: “We have been following with keen interest the open disdain for the ethics of democracy by 11 Northern Governors who, willy-nilly traded off our region’s right to participatory democracy by taking a stance on direct power shift to the South.
“We are deeply disturbed that in addition to their failure to save the North from massive poverty, insurgency, banditry and kidnapping, they are turning around to deny us the right to freely choose where our people want the next President to come from. But we don’t expect party Delegates to follow the self-serving agenda.
“It is undemocratic to Zone Nigeria’s Presidency to the South in 2023 because it is the prerogative of voters to decide which candidate they would like to vote for, whether a Northerner or a Southerner. The masses have not spoken yet, and it amounts to imposition to declare that the South is the way to go.
“The 11 Northern Governors did not indicate a single effort they made to consult their people in the region, before their wholesale endorsement of the declaration for a Southern presidential candidate. An important pillar of democracy, which in consultation with the masses, is out of the question because our governors would rather pretend that their wish is supreme.
“We are deeply worried that the dream of having new faces at the helmsman of affairs of our democratic institutions has now been deliberately killed by self-serving Governors of the North.”
Shettima accused the governors of deliberately attempting to blackmail Buhari into doing their bidding.
He added: “The real agenda of these Northern governors, which is now unfolding, is to deliberately blackmail Buhari into doing their bidding. They expect the President, who loves his people so much, to turn his back via allowing his successor to emerge through the backdoor. We urge President Buhari never to succumb to these Governors’ cheap blackmail of selling out our people’s right to vote for the real candidate of their choice – whether a Northerner or not.
“We call on all Northerners of good conscience to reject this wholesale disenfranchisement of innocent Northern voters in broad daylight by State Chief Executives that are bound by the constitution and the Rule of Law to protect and promote our interests as obedient followers. We say no to this brigandage and brazen dictatorship in the guise of democratic strategy.
“We are seriously looking up to President Buhari not to let the North down. And our biggest hope are the Delegates who have a duty to do whatever is democratically right to defend, promote and project the interest of Nigerians in general and the Northerners in particular.
“We are still watching very closely to this disenfranchising move of the Northern governors against their people, for self-serving political agenda. And we are also waiting to see what happens tomorrow, to see whether they have a new definition of democratic culture and decorum.”