Osinbajo, Kwankwaso, Obi, are better options to lead Nigeria- Prof Ango Abdullahi

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By Ismail Auwal

One of the elder statesmen from the northern Nigeria, Prof Ango Abdullahi, has dismissed the presidential ambitions of the frontline aspirants of All Progressive Congress and People’s Democratic Party, Alh Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Alh Atiku Abubakar, respectively.

In the same vein, Ango gave what would pass for as a fair assessment of the presidential candidates of  Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osibanjo.

“He (Kwankwaso) is a good, young man. He started his politics with us and he is quite smart. No doubt about it. Of course, he had some of these debts that he acquired or he must have picked in other political formations and so on but clearly, he is one of the bright ones around. No doubt about that,” Ango said.

“I believe we have not had good array of politicians. With due respect to some of them that one saw contesting, I am not being selfish here by referring to certain people like Prof. Osinbajo. He is a quality material but the political system will not tolerate him.”

“Peter Obi, unfortunately, I don’t know him that much. He is a young man, he was the former governor of Anambra State and he is a businessman.”

Ango, who is the convener of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), also urged Nigerians not to support the presidential ambitions of both Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu.

He asserted that both Atiku and Tinubu have nothing to offer and cannot fix Nigeria, and warned Nigerians to brace up for the trouble ahead of them should any of the candidates become the next President.

” What I will tell Nigerians is that we are in trouble and the way out is for Nigerians to agree that Nigeria is in trouble and that the machineries that are on ground today, that are expected to find solution to the challenges facing Nigeria are not appropriate and we have to go back to the drawing board to see what we can do to save the Nigeria of the future.” 

“I believe the politicians have failed. My belief is that the political class has over the years failed to produce the kind of quality leadership we require to deal with the problems of Nigeria and which means that we should look for quality materials, not necessarily within the mainstream political parties, from outside and there have been a lot of discussions in Nigeria recently about technocrats,” he said.

He argued that they had been around the political climate for a long time without commensurate positives to show for it but noted, however, that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who contested the primaries in APC, and a former banker, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, who also aspired for the ticket in the PDP would have made better President as technocrats.

Abdullahi, who was also former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria, said he would not queue behind any of the candidates in terms of providing support, the Vanguard reports.

He said, “No, we still haven’t got the man who we think will fix Nigeria. What we have on  ground is not good enough.  How can you look at Tinubu and Atiku to say they are the ones who will fix this country?

”They have been on the ground for the last 25, 30 years and so on. What have they done? What are we looking for? I was the one who encouraged a technocrat to join this consensus. You probably had seen Mohammed Hayatu Deen in the group of people going around looking for a consensus arrangements in PDP. I was one of those who encouraged him. We haven’t got the materials on the ground unfortunately.” 

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