Elders of Southern and Middle
Belt Forum grilled ex-Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over his presidential
ambition on Sunday.
The elders comprised members of
the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Niger Delta Forum, Ohaneze Ndigbo,
Afenifere, Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, and Middle Belt Forum.
The meeting took place at the
Abuja residence of Edwin Clark, leader of PANDEF.
Nnia Nwodo, president-general of
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, told journalists Abubakar was the first presidential aspirant
to appear before the forum.
“We have been meeting for quite
sometime. We are besieged with matters of national importance affecting the
health of our country,” he said.
“One of the programmes we decided
to embark on is to talk with those who have expressed desire to lead our
country to contest for the presidency.
“We wanted to rub minds with
them; we wanted to know their views about the things that are of importance to
us so that by the time we finish the interaction, we will be able to assure
ourselves which of them we think will reflect our aspirations and rejig our
country and bring it to where our country men and women will like it to be.
“By sheer force of providence,
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Wazirin Adamawa has become the first person to be
with us.”
Abubakar, who is one of the
presidential aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said it is
important to interact and exchange views with the socio-cultural, political and
business leaders.
“I’m particularly delighted that
I am the first aspirant that you are meeting. This will provide me the first
opportunity to be able to interact with you representing four zones of our
country,” he said.
“Like it has been said earlier,
Nigeria is beset with many problems. In fact, problems that are so grave, that
are likely, if we don’t move fast enough to contain them, to bring about
another national crisis, God forbid!
“It is therefore our
responsibility both as socio-cultural leaders and political leaders to engage
ourselves in meaningful discuss so that together we can resolve the problems
confronting this country.
“Particularly, I will like to
mention a few key areas where we need to pay attention to: one, is the
structure of our country, is it working? Is it what we want? At least, it has
been there for a number of decades, may be since the military incursion into
our polity in 1966. Is our economy working well? What of other sectors of our
public life? Security, are we secure? Is law and order protecting the majority
of our people in this country? Of course, we have social sector to contend
with.
“We have some problems as far as
our educational sector is concerned. Our health care delivery, our
infrastructural deficit, name them.
“And I think without interacting
and exchanging views and agreeing on how best to resolve these problems with
socio-cultural leaders, political leaders or leaders of business community, we
won’t be able to solve all these problems.
“So, I want to thank you for
giving me this opportunity to interact with you and identify areas we can
confront together and what kind of resolution we are likely to embark on so
that we can resolve some of these problems.”
At the end of the meeting, Nwodo
said the PDP presidential aspirant would be held accountable for his promises,
should he be elected.
“We hold his utterances in high
esteem and should fortune smile on him and he becomes the president of this
country, we will hold him to account,” she said.
“However, we have not come to a
conclusion yet, we are going to listen to other aspirants. He has tremendous
convictions of where he wants to go and we wish him well.”
The forum said it would meet with
other presidential aspirants, including President Muhammadu Buhari.
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