Hakeem Baba Ahmed, a former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum and National Chairman of the PRP, has explained why the group first supported former President Muhammadu Buhari against former President Goodluck Jonathan before later turning against him.…....
Speaking during an interview on SYMFONI TV, Ahmed said the Northern Elders Forum strongly campaigned for Buhari between 2012 and 2015 because they believed he was capable of solving Nigeria’s security and corruption problems.
According to him, Boko Haram was the biggest threat facing the country at the time, and many members of the forum believed Buhari’s military background and reputation for discipline would help him defeat insurgency and tackle corruption.
Ahmed stated that within one year of Buhari becoming president, the group became disappointed with his leadership. He said they later realized that Buhari mainly wanted to achieve his ambition of becoming president and was not delivering the kind of leadership Nigerians expected.
He added that before the 2019 election, the Northern Elders Forum joined other socio-cultural groups to warn Nigerians against giving Buhari another four-year term.
Ahmed said the group publicly told Nigerians that another Buhari administration would be harmful to the country. He also insisted that their warning later proved correct based on the challenges Nigeria faced during Buhari’s second term in office.
In his words, “We said to Nigerians, Buhari is bad news. And we were northerners, we said don’t vote for Buhari again, this man, if he comes back, another four years of Buhari will be disastrous for all Nigerians. And we were right.”
