BY LINUS CHIBUIKE
NORTHERN youths, under the aegis of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, have berated Prof Itse Sagay for dismissing the 2023 presidential ambition of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State.
The AYCF said Sagay was economical with the truth, noting that it was unfair to make pretentious statements about Kogi State, which he said was the safest in the North today.
Sagay was reported to have said that Governor Yahaya Bello had no records to support his presidential ambition.
But Shettima noted that both age and dynamic political thinking might no longer favour Sagay, pointing out that the global trend on the democratic scene had been in favour of mentoring energetic new breed of leaders.
Shettima said, “I am not holding brief for the young Kogi governor, because I know he is capable of defending himself any day, but I am exercising my freedom of expression as a stakeholder in the Nigerian project.
“I think it is quite unfair to make pretentious comments about Kogi State, which is the most peaceful state in the North today.”
He advised Sagay to confine himself to an advisory role, based on his wisdom as an elder, noting that people like him should not be “direct drivers of the democratic system.”
The AYCF boss said it was wrong for Sagay to “indulge in subtle condemnation of young and upcoming new generation of Nigeria’s political class.”
He stated, “All Nigerians, including the people of Kogi State, think their governor will be contesting in 2023 based on competence and not because he is southerner or northerner, unless Sagay thinks we are not practising democracy, but a turn-by-turn political system, which does not even exist in any system of civil governance in today’s world.
“Prof. Sagay should respect the processes of electing a leader under a democratic system and perish the thought of undemocratic turn-by-turn contraption.”
