Northern Elders Exists Only On Papers; You Can Only Speak For Yourself, Not Northern Bloc.”
The Mayor of Urhoboland and prominent ex-militant leader Eshanakpe Israel, a.k.a Akpodoro, has carpeted the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, over what he described as the gaffe of a self-serving and greedy few who he said arrogate to themselves a power they do not have due over what he described as a barefooted threat issued President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Presidency, bearing in mind the 2027 presidential election.
Akpodoro’s comment is contained in a release made available to journalists over the Eid Fitr holiday, stressing that the era when a few disgruntled elements woke up “from the other side of their bed to decide who ruled the country was long gone.”
Mayor Akpodoro noted that only the North didn’t vote the President into power but that he came to power on the back of well-meaning Nigerians who do not pander to ethnic and religious sentiments like a few individuals who he said live in the past like Abdul Azeez Suleiman’s so-called NEF.
According to the Urhobo-born vociferous Mayor, Nigerians are looking forward to a better and more prosperous nation and not drooling in ethnic jingoism like Suleiman would want Nigerians to believe. Still, an equitable nation standing on Fairplay in the spirit of one indivisible united Nigeria, saying no amount of blackmail will derail the current administration.
He stressed further that the 2023 presidential election proved people like Suleiman and co-travelers wrong, noting that President Tinubu defeated ethnocentrism and religion at that election, to the disappointment of the hegemonic few who see themselves as owners of Nigeria.
The former warlord said that Suleiman belongs in 19th century Nigeria, where a few people are granted the power to make a President, stressing that the spread of the overwhelming victory of the Presidential candidate in last year’s election defeated such a notion.
Nigeria, according to Akpodoro, belongs to all and is not an exclusive preserve of the likes of Suleiman, who would instead want the larger Northern region to remain in abject poverty and misery. At the same time, they smile at the banks standing on the numerical strength of the northern masses, adding that Tinubu’s government is a government of the masses and not that of a few who see themselves as kingmakers as he challenged Suleiman to tell the world which he and ethnic jingoists voted for in that election that he said remains one of the best in Nigeria’s history.
The Mayor stated that if anyone was to be denied a second term in office, that person ought to be the immediate former President Muhammadu Buhari, who he noted dragged the nation deeper into abject poverty due to bad governance. He maintained that President Tinubu’s administration would not fund corruption like the nation witnessed in the eight years of General Buhari, whose eight years of ineptitude dragged the Nigerian state back by twenty years.
“Unfortunately, Suleiman spoke for himself and the very few who live under the illusion that they can decide who becomes the nation’s leader. Nigerians overwhelmingly voted for Asiwaju and that mandate he has been utilizing in ensuring a new Nigeria where the children of people with low incomes are made relevant without necessarily dancing to the whims and caprices of some spent forces.
“The Labour Party candidate Peter Obi, whom Suleiman alluded to in his wishy-washy statement, is not more of a statesman than the man who birthed democracy in the world’s most populous black nation. One wonders where Suleiman and his ilks were when the then Senator Tinubu and his National Democratic Coalition wrested power from the military. Was he on sabbatical? This is another failed blackmail that can never stand the test of time.
“The North is united in its support for the Renewed Hope Agenda under this President, and people like Suleiman, whose group exists only on the pages of newspapers, should be told in clear terms to queue behind this President whose ambition is to endow a new Nigeria where every citizen is hopeful and united in national solidarity.
“Come 2027, Nigerians, more than ever before, will excitedly file out to vote massively for the man who has taken the gauntlet to build a New nation where the child of the commoner will be able to live happily among other Nigerians. At the same time, Suleiman’s NEF sees division; patriotic citizens see unity, friendship, brotherhood, and peace… the NEF should bother itself with the insecurity plaguing its region and not play naira and kobo politics at the detriment of the Nigerian masses who primarily live in squalor hopelessly.
“Even in his cluelessnes, Nigerians voted Buhari for a second term in office at the time of which Suleiman’s NEF was asleep. Power belongs to the Nigerian people and not NEF. This government has come to stay. Suleiman and his ethnocentric group should go get a life, stop the rascality and self-aggrandizement that President Tinubu has defeated on February 25, 2023. Its a new Nigeria that is being repositioned for greatness by genuine democratic forces and nobody will pander to the whims and caprices of forces of retrogression and reactionary elements.” The Mayor stated as he called on Nigerians to be wary of those he described as political liabilities who can not win election in their polling units, let alone their wards, saying they are jittery about the progress made by the Tinubu’s administration.
Recall that Suleiman was quoted recently as saying the North regrets voting President Tinubu to power, siting no inclusiveness in the current FG, and wondering how else inclusiveness can be defined if not what the government in power is doing.
