Northern Youth Group Advocates for Southern Presidency, Drums Support for Emefiele

Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja

A group , the Unified Northern Forum for MEFFY 2023 has advocated for a southern presidency in 2023, saying in the interest of peace, fair and justice there was need for a southern candidate to emerge as President of Nigeria.

Furthermore, the group urged the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to heed to their call to contest for the president of Nigeria in the 2023 general elections.

The Convener  of the group, Mohammed Salihu Danlami while addressing newsmen in Lokoja, yesterday, listed the leadership qualities, integrity, being a detribalised Nigeria and also a technocrat as factors that give Emefiele edge over others.

He noted that the group, the Unified Northern Forum  has over four million  membership of youths within the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and working hard to call on Emefiele to serve his father land  at highest capacity as president.

Danlami pointed out that Kogi State was the 18th states the group had visited and soliciting support of Emefiele, believing that with his knowledge of Nigerian economy , the CBN governor would be able to pilot affairs of this country and move Nigeria out of the present economic quagmire.

He lamented that Nigeria had been held by the jugular by hoodlums who would go round the country, make promises and failed in their promises, stressing that Nigerians should try a technocrat this time around.

He recalled that there was an agreement within the party hierarchy of the APC to rotate power between the north and south, stressing that some northerners were already jostling to contest for president come 2023.

He, therefore, admonished those aspiring to contest for president from the northern part of the country to shelve the idea, pointing that this was what a former president wanted to do which the region vehemently opposed, “so let there be justice now.”

He highlighted some of the reasons why the group was craving for Emefiele to contest the exalted number one position of the country to include his excellent performance  in the area of economic policies, various agricultural programmes and interventions reeled out by the CBN.

The convener also pointed out that prior to the discovery of oil in 1958, agriculture was the mainstay of Nigerian economy, adding that an Emefele presidency has what it takes to reverse the trend as the CBN’s anchor borrower’s programme had made ordinary Nigerians millionaire in rice production.

“The time has come to call on the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefele to join the presidential race for 2023 general election”, he posited.