The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, on Thursday declared that the North still has four years to rule Nigeria, after the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari.

AYCF National President, Yerima Shettima made the declaration while faulting Southern governors call for a rotational presidency in 2023.

Speaking exclusively with DAILY POST, Shettima insisted that former Presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan ruled Nigeria for 14 years in favour of the South, while late Musa Yar’Adua and Buhari would have ruled for 10 years in 2023, hence the North has four years outstanding.

Southern governors had demanded that the Southern part of the country should produce Nigeria’s next president in 2023.

They made the call during a meeting in Lagos State.

Reacting, Shettima noted that Southern governors cannot intimidate the North with such decisions.

He said: “That is their personal view which is not binding on Nigerians and Northerners.

“We are in a democracy and it must be practiced with all inclusiveness; as far as we are concerned, it’s not binding on anybody and nobody will abide by such resolution.

“If we are talking about justice, it was not served to us as far as we are concerned, because there is no way Obasanjo would have had eight years uninterrupted, Yar’Adua only did two years then Jonathan took over as an acting president in 2009 and in 2011, Jonathan should not have contested going by the arrangement.

“North is supposed to have eight years uninterrupted but there was interruption due to natural or unforseen circumstances we found ourselves in.

“We foresaw a day like this coming, Jonathan contested in 2011 and won the election. He had six years while Obasanjo had eight years; all in favour of the Southern part of the country. Jonathan and Obasanjo did 14 years in favour of the South.

“After the death of Yar’Adua, the two years outstanding with Buhari’s eight years, if he finishes, you discover that North has only 10 years; so where lies the remaining four years, where is justice?

“We insist that nobody can intimidate us, I will say it again, nobody, not even the Southern governors can intimidate the North as it is today.

“The decision of the Southern governors is purely their business and is not binding on any of us in the North.”

“Those castigating me for wearing the “Dot!Nation” Polo should know that i can even wear it to Aso Rock if anything carries me there.

“There’s nothing an Igbo man will do in this country that people will not talk. If an Igbo man goes to Hausa land or Yoruba land and purchase a land, build a small house and start up a business, God being on his side, he start progressing, others will start envying him.

“Those people envying him might even be in that land before the Igbo man came and they saw the land, yet unable to buy any but ones the Igbo man steps up, everyone will start shouting he’s now taking over our land.

“Give the Igbo people a little opportunity to be on their own and watch them do the unimaginable within a very short period of time.

“Mr. President said we are like a dot in a circle and i am trying to replicate what he said, yet people are complaining, some are crying and while others have developed sudden High Blood Pressure over a common Polo.”

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to change the name of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to “Ministry of Foreign Loans Collection.”

HURIWA made the call while lamenting the continuous loan applications by the ministry.

The frontline rights group, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko said: “Vexed by the unrelenting applications by the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget for foreign loans since the assumption of office of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government in 2015, a call has gone to the President to rename the ministry of finance and Budget to Ministry for foreign loans collection.

“We honestly think that the President should table before his weak Federal Executive Council the proposal for a change of name of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National planning to the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts accumulation.

“This is because Nigerians have come to see that the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed does nothing else than inundating Nigerians with the bad news of the constant requests from all kinds of places around the world for external loans which are actually not been utilised to grow the economy or advance the living conditions of Nigerians but these huge loans are used to service the ballooning costs of running government and paying juicy allowances to Federal government officials”.

HURIWA also dismissed as puerile and distasteful, the opinion credited to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan for saying that Nigeria will continue to apply for foreign loans because the nation is poor.

The Rights group said it “made no sense to accept such a fallacy from the Senate President because in the first place, Nigeria is not poor but resource rich but has poor and corruption infested political leadership and importantly, poor nations without resources aren’t given or granted loans by creditors unless such debtors have collateral by way of resources that the creditors like China can fall back on if Nigeria fails to meet her repayment conditionality.”

HURIWA said: “If Nigeria was such a poor country, creditors like IMF, World Bank, China, Paris Club and London Club won’t be falling on each other to extend loans and credit facilities to a poor nation which is why China for instance has a proviso for sovereign guarantee before awarding those frivolous loans because China is aware of the resource rich nature of Nigeria.”

The right group frowned against the backdrops of the latest approval by the National Assembly of a further $6.18 billion foreign loan by Buhari, stressing that the essence of setting up a ministry of finance is to fashion out and effectively implement sustainable and viable financial mechanisms for aggressively boosting the economy of Nigeria and Nigerians and for promotion of the principles of transparency, accountability and good governance through good policies.

HURIWA also lamented that whereas most nations of the world are concentrating her economic and national planning efforts towards boosting the productivity of the citizens and Gross Domestic Products of their countries through industralisation and the administration and maintenance of public works and social infrastructures to create enabling environment for private sector businesses to thrive and drive economic growth, the federal and state governments in Nigeria are in the bonanza of collecting foreign credit facilities and loans so as to finance the ostentatious political lifestyles of the politicians in the corridors of power.

A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Attahiru Jega, has warned the Senate against confirming the appointment of a presidential aide, Lauretta Onochie, as a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission to avoid controversy.

The former INEC boss said this while featuring on Sunday Politics, a current affairs programme on Channels Television, on Sunday night.

Onochie had on Thursday during her screening by the Senate Committee on INEC, denied being a member of the All Progressives Congress since 2019.

But Jega said, “This kind of controversy is really avoidable. Any person who generated such a controversy; the appointing authorities should be careful because you don’t want to appoint anybody that can raise suspicions or doubts or can lead to a loss of trust of the electoral management body.