A Northern elder, Junaid Mohammed, has pleaded with President Muhammed Buhari to step down from leadership of the country and return to Daura to take care of his ailing health.
Mohammed said President Buhari was taking care of his family and friends at the expense of the well-being of Nigerians. He also said that the herdsmen/farmers conflict could worsen should Buhari remain in office in 2019.
He said: “There is no need for us to continue to keep silent while a cabal, led by persons with little or no knowledge of the economy and those who have never run any successful business enterprise, continue to toy with the well-being and future of over 180 million Nigerians just because they are related one way or the other to the president, who himself knows nothing about the economy.
“It is also not in doubt that this president has brought more of his kinsmen, most of them who are unqualified, than any other Nigerian president in history into key national positions, thereby trivialising governance and promoting mediocrity at the highest level.”
Mohammed also said it was not compulsory that the Presidency went to the North, saying instead that it was the responsibility of those who seek the office to work towards achieving their goals.
He said: “Look, there is nothing that makes it compulsory for Nigerians to concede the presidency to the north at any point in time. Any group that needs the presidency of Nigeria must be ready to work for it.
“We must not continue to accept a situation where some people sit somewhere and ‘anoint’ some persons they know are either ill or weak and impose them on the rest of the people and they either die midway into their tenure or fail woefully to perform due to ill health or poor understanding of the economy or both.