Coomassie-led APC will ensure presidency for North – Maitama Sule

Chairman of Northern Elders Forum, Ambassador Maitama Sule, has expressed happiness over Arewa Consultative Forum’s election of a former Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, as its chairman “at a time when the North is doing everything possible for the presidency to return to the region.”

Sule, who is also the Danmasani Kano, said Coomassie had worked under the Late General Sani Abacha and that his record as a no-nonsense police officer was there for all to see.

He said: “I don’t know of Northern Elders Council, and we, in Northern Elders Forum, will now work with Coomassie’s ACF to ensure that the region regains the leadership of this country again so that what we lost since 1999 that has virtually crippled the North will make us relevant again in the scheme of things.”

On whether President Jonathan’s visits to emir of Kano was for the monarch to bless the president’s desire to run for the 2015 presidency, Sule said Kano people would never forget that the respected Emir of Kano was nearly killed like a commoner, under Jonathan’s presidency; “so, we will never forget that easily.”

“The issue is I have been around for long, I have associated with our leaders since the First Republic. I was a minister before, I was an ambassador, a former presidential aspirant, in fact, some soothsayers told me in 1978 that the country would produce the president in 1979 from North-west, a Hausa-Fulani, but when they said the person uses long caps I knew it was Shagari.”