The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has said that the present leadership under President Goodluck Jonathan appears incapable or unwilling to lead Nigeria out of its challenges.
They made the declaraton in a document titled ‘The Kano Declaration’, issued by the Forum under the leadership of First Republic politician, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, and other prominent northern groups that met in Kano this week.
The elders also stated that the North’s problems are traceable to leadership failure at national and state levels, adding that there seems to be deliberate plot to undermine the North’s economy through diabolical systematic underdevelopment of the region.
The document, Blueprint gleaned yesterday, admonished those tasked with the responsibility to ensure that the 2015 elections are conducted under best practices and devoid of using security agencies to achieve sinister interests, for genuine democracy, peace and unity of the country.
Part of the document reads in part: “We are Nigerians from the North, who convened the Kano Assembly on Monday, 10th and Tuesday, 11th of March, 2014 to discuss the state of the Nigerian nation, particularly the place and future of Northerners in its current disposition and in its future. We adopt this Declaration in the firm belief that it represents the essentials of Northern interests.
“The Assembly was convened in pursuit of time-tested and honoured values and principles that have guided the perceptions of Northerners in Nigeria since the Amalgamation of 1914, and have determined the manner Northerners contributed to the building of our nation in the last 100 years.”
Positing that the present government appears incapable, it argued, “Concerned that Nigeria’s current leadership appears incapable or unwilling to lead it out of its multiple challenges; convinced that our current circumstances as Nigerians and Northerners demand the highest levels of responsibility and commitment to our national survival, unity and progress from all sections and generations of Nigerians.”
The elders further stated: “Political activities, including elections, must respect the will of the people; and further attempts to deprive the North of its rights to benefit fully in the democratic process will be lawfully and firmly resisted. Unfair and unjust allocation of resources of the nation, which deprives the North of its legitimate rights, must cease; and the North must intensify efforts to improve the exploitation and management of its own human and other resources.
“The rather diabolical, purposive and systematic underdevelopment of Northern economy and its social structures by the national leadership and some leaders in the North must be resisted; and policies which deepen inequity, underdevelopment, injustice against the North must be reversed.”
