Some northern youths have said Senator Kabiru Marafa’s tirade targeted at the minister of state for defence, Bello Matawalle, in a pretentious bid to defend the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and express support for President Bola Tinubu is at best the worst form of hypocrisy and a struggle between the former senator’s loyalty to the government of the day and its enemies.
The youths under the auspices of Arewa Consultative Youth Movement, Northern Youth Association of Nigeria, and Congress of Arewa Youth for Peace and Equity, stated this at a press conference in Abuja.
Addressing journalists jointly, leaders of the groups, Kabiru Yusuf Godiya Adams and Yahaya Garba expressed disappointment in Marafa’s claim that Matawalle, by chiding the Northern Elders Forum, was creating enmity between the president and the North.
They said this is nothing but hogwash and a poor interpretation of events by Marafa and called to question his basic understanding of the events that transpired, leading to Matawalle’s well-intentioned and well delivered response to the forum.
“The forum, in its highhandedness and delusion, claimed that it now regrets supporting the President Bola Tinubu bid for the office of Nigeria’s president. The Forum, in a state of forgetfulness, dipped in self-delusion, forgot that it never supported the APC nor its presidential candidate. It both in private and public gave its support to the opposition PDP candidate.
“Worse, it has in a bid to assert its prominence claimed to speak for the North. The North, comprising 19 States, has never appointed anyone to speak for it. Any gang of old and middle-aged men can gather together and call themselves a Forum of Elders, but that does not in any way make them a Forum for over 140 million people. No one ever appointed the Northern Elders Forum as a middleman to interface between the region and the government of the day.
“Having realised the folly in emphasising their earlier claim while attempting to berate the Minister for standing up to them, the Northern Elders Forum have only just recently released a statement distancing themselves from Abdulazeez Sulaiman, Director of Publicity and Spokesman of the NEF, who had earlier made known the position of the Forum on national TV. They now claim that it was his personal opinion.
“This, of course, is quite laughable when you consider how the former spokesman of the forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, and Senator Marafa quickly jumped out to attack the minister for discrediting the position of the Forum,” the groups said.
According to them, the forum kept silent when the North faced a multitude of challenges such as when the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway became a hub for bandits and kidnappers, daughters of the region were being taken by rapist kidnappers and terrorists to be sold as slave wives.