The Northern Emancipation Network has said that youths in the north are yet to take a decision on whom to support in the 2019 presidential election.
Leader of the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said this in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, it was too soon for any group or individual to make a public declaration that the Northern block had made a choice between the presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
He said: “Every Nigerian, northerners most especially, know that the factors that will determine 2019 are distinct from those that shaped the pattern of the 2015 elections. Unlike the previous contest, 2019 is going to be fought between two northerners of the same religious faith and both of the same Fulani stock.
“What may dominate the debate for 2019 would, therefore, be critical physical and human development issues for the North and integrity to a large extent. It is therefore hasty for any individual or group to claim that the North has agreed on a preferred candidate among the two.
“This is not to take away the right of individuals or associations to form opinions in accordance with their personal sets of biases.
“The North and those individuals or groups that genuinely aim to promote and protect the collective interest of the region must not be in a hurry. They should allow their decision to be informed by the commitment of each of the candidates to the fate of the North,” Suleiman said.
Suleiman insisted that candidates must be able to show their worthiness for the position by presenting their scorecards before the Northern youths would take them serious ahead of the 2019 Presidential election.
“President Buhari should make a comprehensive and articulate presentation of his efforts for the North in the last three years and the plans he has for the region, if given the second chance.
“On the other had Atiku must give convincing clarifications about the myriad moral bankruptcy issues raised against him as well as make available whatever alternative programme he might have for the region. All these have not been done.
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“The fact that both candidates belong to the same old brigade that oscillated the total available activity of the region in one way or the other since independence, makes it more imperative for the younger generations to tread with caution.
“Young northerners who have all along been at the receiving end of every harsh reality should no longer be taken for a ride by staking their fate in the hands of self-appointed regional leaders and sectional elders, who themselves constitute a major hurdle in the path of the region’s progress in particular and the country to a large extent.
“To borrow from the words of a second republic politician, we are living today in times of great changes with the old order crumbling past and new systems of life and activity emerging.
“The task before the younger generation is therefore, to understand these changes and utilise them for human progress,” the youth leader said.
It would be recalled that the Northern Emancipation Network, came into limelight last year by confronting the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
