The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Northern Elder’s Forum (NEF) on Friday said that North had resolved to support a northern candidate since APC has fielded a candidate from the region.
They have no alternative than to support him following the ratification of president Goodluck Jonathan’s candidature by the ruling PDP. They averted that President Jonathan shouldn’t be in the contest in the first place if the the principle of zoning that was created by by his party and the constitution is respected. In no way should he be a candidate by now they said.
The Chairman of ACF, Ibrahim Coomasie, a former Inspector General of Police, said, “First of all, the APC presidential primary and the PDP convention have clearly shown those who are ready to practice democracy. The APC’s primary was held smoothly without any rancor and all of them have come out to accept the result. That is a good omen for our democracy. I hope INEC will emulate that.
“So, we are congratulating Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who has been winning primaries all through. Only when it comes to the general elections, he is always rigged out. We have also seen what happened in the other party.
“I am the Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and we have said it before and we are reiterating it that, we are going to support a northern candidate. And since APC has voted a northern candidate, we are going to support him 100 per cent. So, Buhari is our candidate for the 2015 election.”
He, however, said if Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, had won the APC primary, they would still have supported him because he was born and brought up in the North and has shown interest in the development of Nigeria and the region in particular.
The primaries has passed, then we now await the main one.