Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
The Northern Youths Movement (NYM) has labeled as his true adversaries leaders of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, such as former Jigawa State Governor Alhaji Sule Lamido, who are bolstering the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, rather than telling him the truth.
The youths, who agreed with Alhaji Lamido that openly calling an elder a liar is uncultured, added that openly lying by elders is also against our culture.
According to a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by its Chairman, Mallam Ishaya Jato, “age and grey hairs will only be honorable when elders stop lying openly and tell themselves the basic truth that is required of people who are desirous of fostering unity.”
They claimed that Alhaji Lamido’s disparaging remarks about River State Governor Nyesom Wike had become distasteful and unbecoming of an elder who genuinely wants his party to win elections.
Even though we are not out to defend Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike or anyone else, we feel compelled to respond to Alhaji Sule Lamido’s constant rant against the governor because we do not want it to appear that he is speaking for the North and that we in the North are power-hungry.
Alhaji Lamido and others, in our opinion, are destroying the North’s chances of retaining the presidency after 2023, and the sooner they are held accountable, the better.
Elders who lie, such as those acting as Atiku’s ‘attack dogs,’ are more uncultured in the face of God, law, and society, and they must be told to keep quiet before causing further harm.
This is especially true given that these people will provide little or no help to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in terms of votes and election funding.
Even with Alhaji Lamido as Governor, the PDP lost Jigawa State by nearly 200,000 votes to President Mohammadu Buhari’s CPC in 2011. The PDP got 491,252 votes, while the CPC got 663,994 votes.
The same thing happened in Jigawa State in 2015, when the PDP was defeated by over 700,000 votes. The PDP polled 142,904 votes, while the APC polled 885,988.
Alhaji Lamido was unable to deliver Jigawa State to the PDP even with Atiku as the PDP’s candidate in 2019. The APC received 794,738 votes, while the PDP received 289,895. In other words, the PDP was defeated by 504,843 votes in Alhaji Lamido’s Jigawa State.
So, where does Alhaji Lamido’s and his supporters’ faith in Atiku come from? Shouldn’t elders like Alhaji Lamido be reconciliatory rather than fanning the flames of discord by purposefully rubbing salt on an injury caused by people motivated solely by personal hatred for an individual rather than the overall interests of the North in particular and Nigeria in general?
