Youth group seeks Tinubu’s support to North-west Senate presidency
Mohammed Kaka Misau
As permutations for who becomes what and how in the next National assembly, a group known as Northern Youths Assembly (NOYA) has called on the Nigeria’s President-elect, Senator Bola Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to support someone from the Northwest sub-region to become the next senate president.
The group which made the call in a press statement Sunday, opined that Tinubu should as matter of necessity, pay kindness with kindness by ensuring that the Senate Presidency is zoned to the North-West sub-region of Nigeria.
Signed by its National Coordinator, Dr. Suleiman Mustapha Gombe, the Youth group urged the president-elect, Bola Tinubu to reward Sen. Barau Jibrin by supporting his Senate presidential ambition
They recalled how Sen. Barau stood firm for the APC in Kano when it was engulfed by a protracted crisis that nearly consumed its leadership when Seven serving National assembly members from the state led by Ibrahim Shekarau built a formidable faction called G7 to challenge what they considered as gross injustice done to them by the state leadership of the party.
The youth group said had the crisis continued, 85% of the total votes scored in Kano State by the APC during the last presidential election in which Tinubu won would have been wasted in voting for the NNPP’s presidential candidate who was/is only popular in Kano State.
“It was Barau Jibrin’s unrivalled popularity, generosity and proudest achievements that saved the party from collapsing in totality in Kano State”, they said.
According to the group, had Senator Barau lacked the mind to endure all the incessant verbal attacks, mockery, innuendos and side-swipes, he would have jettisoned the APC for either the PDP or the NNPP, a situation which would have left the APC ending up with nothing above 120,000 votes in Kano.
“The story would have been both disgusting and disheartening to every level-headed member of the governing APC all over the country,” the group stated.
They said that “the gap between Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu would have been a wafer-thin which could have turned the table against the APC.”
They assured Tinubu that if given the Senate Presidency, Barau will help him save Nigeria from drifting into the abyss of insecurity, political instability, economic morass and the menacing unemployment among productive youths across the country.
“Nigerians are fully aware that a man of Bola Tinubu’s unsoiled character and moral standing will never ever for whatever reason support people with questionable characters and denoted antecedents who are presently neck-deep into financial crimes as they report to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a weekly basis for further criminal investigations bordering on financial misappropriation worth billions of Naira”, they said
The group while pointing out that no North westerner has ever occupy the office of the president of the Senate in the history of Nigerian politics, said for the sake of justice, equity and fairness, the zone where sen Barau comes from should produce one.
“Out of the 14 Senate Presidents that we have had in this country from 1960 to date, none was from the North-Western part of this country”, the group explained.
The Northern Youth said only Four out of them were from the North where three of them came from the North- Central.
The reiterated that the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu needs an industrious, patriotic and detribalised person like Senator Barau Jibrin who sees Nigeria as one indivisible house to work with in order to move Nigeria forward.