Arewa Group Deny Backing Jonathan For The 2023 Elections 

Former President Goodluck Jonathan is not the Arewa Consultative Forum’s (ACF) favoured candidate for the 2023 presidential election.

News Agency of Nigeria

Alhaji Musa Saidu, an ACF chieftain, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.

Saidu, who is also the leader of the Arewa community in the South-South and South-East, was responding to media allegations that Jonathan had been approved by a coalition of Northern Groups for the 2023 election.

“ There was never a time the ACF or the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) endorsed a particular aspirant for the presidential election.

“I was to say clearly that no coalition or any group has the mandate to speak for the North,” he said.

Although the pressure group has the freedom to speak on national matters, Saidu claims it does not have the authority to speak on behalf of the North.

“ I actually read a statement credited to one Abdulazeez Suleiman, the spokesperson for the coalition claiming that the North has endorsed Jonathan for 2023.

“I want to say that this is not true,” he said.

Accepting the organisations’ argument that there are other credible and qualified candidates in all of the South-South and South-East states besides Jonathan is ludicrous, he says.

“ We have been living in the South-South for years, we are part of the politics and we know who is who in the area, Jonathan came to power by incidental political circumstances, we know his weaknesses and advantages.

“ We have more credible candidates than him even within the Buhari administration, you can get them. Perhaps, the coalition’s claims was to attract monetary benefits from the former president, certainly not on the basis of truth,’’ he said.’

The chieftain advised Nigerians to ignore the assertion and urged the coalition to stop speaking for the North.

“ It is absolutely misleading for a group to speak on behalf of the North without any mandate, doing this is a mischief and tantamount to creating confusion among interest groups,” he said.

President Muhammadu Buhari was praised by Saidu for pushing all potential cabinet members to resign.