From Segun Babatunde in Bauchi
The Nigerian Youth Awareness for Yahaya Bello 2023 has rejected the claims made by the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje that Norrth are behind Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s presidential ambition.
National President of the Group, Alhaji Salihu Magaji Tuesday rejected the claim in his reaction over the statement credited to Ganduje, saying that the statement “is political brandishment and wishful thinking of the speaker, and it is misleading, but its not the true position of the North”.
Magaji asked “How many states in the North did the governor visited before coming to the conclusion that the North is behind Tinubu to warrant this statement, apart from just one. He didn’t go anywhere, but many genuine and responsible political groups that have their roots in all the grassroots areas in the north, have genuine statistics that the north are behind their Yahaya Bello Presidential ambition”,
According to him, ” we are in contact with majority of the electorates who have their voters card and are fully ready to vote for Yahaya Bello as Nigeria’s President come 2023″
What we expect Tinubu as a leader in APC to do is to look for the unity of the party by allowing democracy to prove itself in 2023.He is expected to back a younger candidatewho has the support from.all nooks and crannies of Nigeria like Yahaya Bello to emerge as the President in 2023″.
He said: “If one is consulted by our national leader, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on whether he should run or not for the exalted office of the President of Nigeria in 2023, my candid advice will be that he should use his abundant Almighty God’s endowment to unite the APC, and unite the South and by extension our beloved country, by backing a candidate that’s most acceptable and popular candidate like Yahaya Bello ” .
“The scriptures said there is time for everything which happens on earth. Am one of those Buharists who have tremendous respect for Asiwaju for the critical supplement he added to Buhari’s 12 million Vote-Bank, which resulted in our 2015 presidential election victory. It is not a mean feat, when you consider that with Buhari’s Vote-Bank, we were unable to win in 2003, 2007 and 2011, until the merger of the legacy political parties, where Tinubu played a major role,”, he argued.
It would be recalled that Governor Ganduje said the entire North was behind Tinubu’s 2023 presidential ambition.
He said the time was ripe for the North to pay back Tinubu for supporting President Muhammadu Buhari.The Governor spoke at the inauguration of an office for Northern Youth Professionals for Tinubu in Kano.