Sunday Aborisade, Abuja
A group of youths from various parts of northern Nigeria has formed a pressure group, known as 100 per cent Focus Movement.
They said their aim was to sensitise the people of the area to the need to elect the candidate of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as the next president of Nigeria.
National Coordinator of the group, Labib Mahmood, at a media parley in Abuja yesterday said the group was formed to sensitise the people of northern Nigeria to the need to vote for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, in the 2024 Presidential Election.
Mahmood said the idea actually started when he was able to touch the lives of some women in his community being a recipient of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
He said: “While the challenges facing my people are enormous, a social organisation would not be able to make much impact without collaboration with partners.
“Three organisations partnered with us to float a foundation that realised that the problem with Nigeria is lack of purposeful leadership.
“We started beaming our searchlight on leaders who had shown capacity to provide quality and purposeful leadership, hence we settled for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.”
Mahmood said there was a time Tinubu came to Maiduguri and his group interacted with him and held useful discussions with him.
Also speaking on the occasion, the National Chairman of the group, Ibrahim Mohammad, said the role played by Tinubu in and outside government eminently qualified him to lead the country from next year as President.
Mohammad said the way Tinubu had fixed Lagos State needed to be replicated in other parts of the country.
He said if the APC had made a mistake with the current administration, it should bring in someone who understands the problems and could effectively fix it.
“The country needs someone who understands the problems of Nigeria and the exact thing to do and fix it.
“We are hereby urging our people in the country to give the APC another chance to right the wrongs. There is the need to shun ethnic politics so that the military would not intervene.
He said Tinubu had been loyal follower of those leading his party since he left office as governor in 2007 and had been building leaders all the way.
An entrepreneur, Prince Gowon Egbunu, debunked insinuations that the north was cleverly trying to seize power through the back door by supporting Tinubu, who is believed to be very sick.
He said, “Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is hale and hearty. The North is not supporting him because we felt he could die. Only God can determine whether a man would die or live.
” We are supporting Tinubu because we believe he has what it takes to creatively turn the economy of Nigeria around for good. “
