By Ojo Sola Olusegun
The Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY) has lambasted former President Olusegun Obasanjo for asking President Goodluck Jonathan to replace Vice President Namadi Sambo with Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa state, saying that “he can no longer choose leaders for the North.”
According to the Coalition, the ex-president’s action of seeking replacement for Sambo for the 2015 general elections was designed to destabilise the North and create confusion amongst its political elites.
A statement issued by the Coalition by its National Coordinator, Comrade Samaila Dallah, said: “It was the same Obasanjo that caused the same problem that is bedevilling the North today by forcing late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on the country when he knew the health condition of the Katsina-born politician.
“We are bothered by the recent reports credited to former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he wants President Goodluck Jonathan to replace the Vice President with Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido as the next Vice President, if insinuations that the president wants to re-contest his position in 2015 is true.”
It added: “What the region need is a committed leadership that will work to not only end the insurgency ravaging it but bring development to its downtrodden masses. It is because of this that we view the recent campaign of calumny being orchestrated by a section of the political class against the person of the Vice President Sambo as not only diversionary but an agenda aimed at destabilising the north.
“While the Coalition of Northern Youths have nothing against the person of the Jigawa state Governor, Sule Lamido, we find it an aberration that former President Olusegun Obasanjo should be the one choosing leaders for the North when we have competent stakeholders that have the interest of the zone at heart.”
