Prof. Ango Abdullahi, the convener of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), recently spoke to Vanguard News on the state of Nigerian politics. The northern elder did introspective analysis on the emerged presidential candidates of different parties.
Abdullahi insisted that both Tinubu and Atiku have nothing meaningful to offer to the disarrayed Nigeria and he concluded that both men “have been on the ground for the last 25, 30 years and so on. What have they done?
He said that Peter Obi of Labour Party and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso are better options.
When the issue of vice president Osinbajo was raised within the context of betrayal of trust and loyalty to his political godfather Tinubu by running against him in the APC primary election. Abdullahi defended the political sagacity of Osinbajo and his right to contest for the highest office of the land.
Prof. Abdullahi said, “What has it got to do with what Nigeria wants? Is he a slave to the former governor? I don’t understand this kind of analogy. Professor Osinbajo is a human being entirely on his own merit and his accomplishments are entirely his own and people should assess him as such. ”Those who needed his services asked for his services.”
He continued, “When he served as the attorney general of Lagos State, he was invited by the political system of Lagos State. This is the way I look at it and when he became vice president, I understand it is the president/party that identified him as qualified and competent enough to be the vice president in the current dispensation.”
Prof. Abdullahi made the point clearly that serving under an individual in government space does not make you subject to person’s rulership, ”Why shouldn’t he be because he served under XYZ. He should be identified as an individual for leadership in the country,” he insisted.
Abdullahi maintained that Nigeria is in trouble and solution becomes possible when Nigerians are aware of the trouble, “What I will tell Nigerians is that we are in trouble and the way out is for Nigerians to agree that Nigeria is in trouble and that the machineries that are on ground today, that are expected to find solution to the challenges facing Nigeria are not appropriate and we have to go back to the drawing board to see what we can do to save the Nigeria of the future.
“I believe the politicians have failed. My belief is that the political class has over the years failed to produce the kind of quality leadership we require to deal with the problems of Nigeria and which means that we should look for quality materials, not necessarily within the mainstream political parties, from outside and there have been a lot of discussions in Nigeria recently about technocrats,” he said.
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