The president of Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima has said that with the entrance of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar into the 2019 presidential contest, youths in northern Nigeria will not support incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 polls.

Shettima, who made the statement while fielding questions from journalists on Sunday described Atiku’s emergence as a welcome development which has changed the political calculations in the country.

While stressing that the northern elite could no longer force an unpopular candidate on the youth, the president of the AYCF which is a coalition of youth groups in the 19 northern states, said Atiku had the pedigree and capacity to tackle them.

He said that the North gave their support to President Buhari in 2015 because it was a race between him, a northerner and former President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the South.

“From all I know about him (Atiku) personally, he has the capacity. We will rally round him and give him all the support he needs because this is all about democracy. It is not a fight against APC and Buhari alone, it is a fight for democracy and with his emergence democracy has come to stay in Nigeria.

 

“The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum is not a partisan organization. But in my capacity, definitely I will work for Atiku. I will also work in my capacity to ensure that El-Rufai is also shown the way out and ensure that we have a pure democrat in that system,” Shettima said.

“The only thing I find in him is that capacity, intellectually and also he is an experienced politician. He is somebody whom I have come to discover that he believes in Nigeria without taking sides, without being nepotistic.

“He is also creative, somebody I believe if you give him the opportunity he would turn things around for the best interest of this country. That is my conviction about him. For Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai must go and Isah Ashiru should take over. Democracy has come to stay in Nigeria.

“El-Rufai has suddenly become a dictator to the extent that he undermines the credibility and views of the Kaduna people. He thinks he is the only one who is intellectually sound.

“He believes he is the only one who knows everything. No one man can claim monopoly of knowledge and that is what I see is wrong with el-Rufai and that is why I don’t like him.

“That is what I find wrong in him. He believes in the whole of Kaduna nobody is competent except himself. That is the reason I don’t like anything about him. He was never part of those who sacrificed their lives to bring about this democracy.

“It pains me when this man has been given opportunity and he is behaving like a tin god because they have not paid any price. A lot of us who are supposed to be thinking that way are today left out of the game and that is the more reason I chose to participate in politics because that is worth doing and what is worth doing is worth doing well.

“Some of us cannot fold our arms and allow those who have not made any sacrifice, any contribution to the evolution of our democracy just because they have opportunities through godfatherism. These kind of people should not be allowed to be at the helm of affairs and oversee the affairs of this nation. This is not a good development.

“In the case of Buhari, the incompetence is very obvious. You do not need to be told. In terms of fighting corruption, it is zero. In terms of tackling insecurity in the nation, it is zero.

“The threat to our national security today leaves much to be desired because everywhere in Nigeria today there is insecurity. If care is not taken one day we will run into anarchy. Everything about this government is not normal,” he added.