2023: Group drums support for Atiku’s presidential ambition

The Young Professionals for Atiku Abubakar, a political pressure group, has urged Nigerians to support former vice-president Atiku Abubakar to actualise his presidential ambition in 2023.

Dr Ja’afaru Sa’ad, a former gubernatorial aspirant in Kaduna State under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the convener of the movement, appealed in an interview with Journalists on Friday in Zaria.

Sa’ad said the group was a coalition of young professionals across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. They believe in the potential of the former vice president to lead the country to greater heights.

He described the agitation for the president to come from the southern part of the country as “the noise of democracy’’, adding that “we are in a democracy and people were free to ventilate their opinion”.

“If you narrowed Nigeria’s democracy down from 1999 to date, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had about three presidents; Olusegun Obasanjo from the Southwest spent eight years.

“Umaru Yar’Adua from North West spent about three years before he died, and power automatically shifted to South-South, and subsequently PDP lost control to APC.

“The president is now from North West, but it was from a different party, not the PDP. Therefore, in the whole of this scenario, the north just spent about three years.

“The north had yet to complete its eight-year tenure in line with PDP zoning arrangement,’’ he said.

He said PDP’s presidential flagbearer needed to come from the north for the zone to complete its remaining one term. The “best candidate for the exalted office is former vice president Abubakar”.

According to Sa’ad, the country is polarised, and it is on the verge of total collapse due to the current socio-economic difficulties and security challenges.

“As a group, we believe that Mr Abubakar has the experience and expertise to salvage our country from these multi-dimensional challenges,” he asserted.