Former Nigerian lawmaker, Shehu Sani, has said that Nigerian Northern leaders should do away with their plan to evict President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from office in the 2027 Presidential elections, as such a move will negatively affect the unity of Nigeria.

Sani said this in an interview with ARISE news on Thursday, where he also advised Northern leaders to, instead of trying to gain more political power, plug into the policies and programmes of the Tinubu administration that will benefit the Northern part of Nigeria, which has been grappling with insecurity and poverty, amongst other problems.

Sani, addressing the alleged plot by Northern leaders to unseat Tinubu in 2027, said, “There is evidence of rallying of forces, regrouping of forces- political forces from the North- trying to use former President Buhari as a rallying point in order to evict the government of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and they hope to resurrect his political chance in the house of the masses and portray the government as one that has been undermining the North and one that has not been living up to its campaign promises to the region being that it has its highest votes from there. And I must warn that attempts to do that can create a serious problem for our country.

“Buhari has been in power for eight years and there has never been any serious Southerner that challenged his own government in terms of trying to remove him out of office. And secondly, we should know that before you think of power, we should think of the whole country. We should be thinking of a united country, a peaceful country. Nigeria is still a fragile nation. What will happen if Southern politicians decide to also form the idea of uniting themselves and making a position that this is their stand? There will be no Nigeria.

“So, they should, in the interest of the unity of the country and the future of the country, sacrifice their own personal ambition at least for 2027, and the North will have the moral right to ask for power after the second term of this administration.”

“This desperation for power will not go well for the region, for the unity and collective peace of our country as a nation,” he added.

Emphasising the need for Northern leaders to address the problems faced in their region, Sani said, “It’s a historical fact that people from the North have been in political power for a longer time, and that power was an opportunity for them to use to develop the regime, to address the problems of insecurity, of education, of underdevelopment and of the widening gap between the rich and the poor. But unfortunately, that power that ought to have been used that way was misused.

“It (the Northern Region) is ahead in poverty index, it lags behind in industry, and it lags behind in many aspects of development. It’s a serious concern because part of the problem we are facing in the north today as far as security can be rooted in a history of bad governance, a history of corruption, a history of insensitive leaders, and a history of people who ought to have used power to develop their own part of the country which they have not been able to do that. So, power has not been of use to Northern Nigeria for the period which it has lasted.”

Sani then said, “For the fact that the North has been behind in a number of indices of development, there should have been a concerted effort in terms of bringing development to that part of the country. But look at what we are having now- in the last eight years before the coming of this administration, in 2015 there was so much hope, there was so much belief and faith that the leadership that took over at that time will address these fundamental issues, but it was not.

Today, the states in the North-West are facing serious problems of banditry, kidnappings, and killings by all sorts of violent groups. In the North-East, the Boko Haram, ISIS and other terrorist groups are still holding sway, despite the fact that not only the North has been in power from 2015-2023, but major organs of government were headed by people from that region, and they have not actually used it for development. So now, I think the fact that someone from the South has taken over, there appears to be an organised attempt for them to resurrect their power base and see how they can return to power.

“So, power should be of use to the masses… in the North, power should address their poverty, should address their insecurity, should address the issues of development, and not power should be used to enrich an insignificant few who simply are parasitic on the economy of the country.”

He also said there is a need for the Tinubu administration to go ahead with the issue of restructuring, as he said it will be a systemic opportunity for Nigerians to address the problems of underdevelopment and for the North to “come back home and see what it can do with its resources to address the problem that it is facing for more than a decade or two.”

Giving his opinion on what could be done to solve the ongoing problems in the North, Sani said, “I believe that what is needed is for the region itself to key into the policies and programmes of this administration, to see how those policies and programmes can be used to address the problems that we face. Luckily, the security apparatus are headed to some extent by Northerners- the National Security Adviser is from the North, the DG SSS is from the North, and there are also Northerners that are placed in one or two things. So, I think it’s an opportunity to give them all the necessary support at this time to address these problems of insecurity because the North suffers more than any other town.

He said that the North constitutes about 70% of Nigeria’s landmass and also makes up most of Nigeria’s population as it is more populated than the South. “All that should have been is that when people from the North has the opportunity to be in power, they should prioritise areas which there should be an intervention. It’s not simply appointing Northerners to office but addressing problems which the North is facing,” he said.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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