Posted by By TONY AKOWE, Kaduna on
As the Northern leaders continue to insist on the return of Presidential power to the north in 2007, the governor of Sokoto State.....
As the Northern leaders continue to insist on the return of Presidential power to the north in 2007, the governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa said yesterday that the present crop of northern leaders have failed the people and therefore has no moral right to agitate for power.
The governor who spoke on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) monitorred in Kaduna yesterday said that both the Vice President and the 19 Northern state governors must take the blame for the woes and sufferings in the North. Bafarawa said that the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the 19 northern governors have betrayed the people of the north who entrusted them with their mandate since 1999.
He argued that the vice president and the northern governors have let the people down in the past seven years of the return to democracy, asking them to apologise to the people and take steps to redeem the integrity of the North if they really want power back in 2007.
"The North has never experienced the untold hardship it is experiencing during our leadership period. If we say 'we', we mean the nineteen northern governors and the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. "For the past seven years, God has placed us in a position of leadership. We are supposed to unite and see what the North should get, what is the right for the North and what we ought to get for it.
"But sadly, we often converge in Kaduna and say we are meeting; we tell our people, firstly, that the governors are meeting to discuss the myriad of problems facing the North so that they will be happy with us. But the momment we finish such meeting and communique is issued, everything will disappear into thin air", he said. While asking the Vice President as the political leader of the north and the governors to work towards and ensure the unity of the North, he said that they must also be prepared to address the myriad of problems in the north before the 2007 presidential polls. Bafarawa who recently left the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) to float the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) noted that it will be foolhardy to jostle for presidential power when the people are disenchanted with the stewardship of their leaders which has brought apparent disunity in the North.
"If any among one us wants to contest the 2007 presidential election, let us first and foremost join forces, arrive at a consensus, since no one can choose a leader except God Almighty.
"The offence we committed by destroying the integrity of the North must be rectified and then we all must come back and unite since it is not late yet," he said.