The move is to present a Christian Northerner for the presidential race against President Goodluck Jonathan who they believe have hijack Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential ticket base on his grip on the party.
“What is happening now is really worrisome.
“We understand that the game plan is for the merger partners in the (defunct) CPC to produce the presidential candidate while the Action Congress of Nigeria is to produce the Vice Presidential candidate.
“General Buhari is still very much interested but some elements in the North with the active support of Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, are looking towards TY Danjuma.
“The thinking is that he will have greater national appeal and he is perhaps the only person who Buhari can step down for, because of the tremendous respect he has for him.
“They are considering the option of co-opting him into the APC, using this window to give him a platform to challenge Jonathan, who appears almost certain to run on the PDP platform”, according to source in APC.
Reacting to this scenario, the Spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said, “We (the Northern Elders Forum) believe that the North should produce the President otherwise, the President of Nigeria in 2015 should be of northern extraction.
“Our position has been consistent that a suitably acceptable good candidate for the position of president should garner support hopefully not only in the North but also elsewhere in the country.
“If my friend is presented to me today, I will be the first to move around and canvass support for him.
“TY Danjuma is a personal friend and bearing his age, I would be one of those who will force him to run.
“But if the general agreement presents him, I will be the happiest for it.
“Obviously, Danjuma will have national and international appeal.
“We know the position is open to all of us, if we are a bit honest with ourselves, we will agree that one is better placed than the other and TY Danjuma should have perhaps been the president of the country many years ago.
“And perhaps he was the one who declined, otherwise people could have supported his leadership for the country many years ago and if he feels strong enough to provide that leadership, I will be one of those who will support him.”, stating that the age of the 74yrs old General doesn’t matter.
Dr. Junaid Mohammed, a former Parliamentarian while reacting to the matter said, , “If our leadership crisis is real or contrived, meaning that the political class has become so irresponsible that nobody is thinking about the future of the country, then we are in trouble.
“If what I just said was true, then we have a very serious problem, because it seems we have to be going backwards to look for leaders who will lead us forward.
“That is not a characteristic of a forward looking progressive society. In fact, a society so condemned to this kind of thinking is permanently doomed and its survival is equally doomed.”
When contacted, National Publicity Secretary of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, said
“Everybody is going to start on a fresh platform, we are starting anew. It’s too early to start talking about the presidential candidate for the party at this point.
“We will not allow anybody to distract us because we still have to go for a convention to elect our officials. It is not the interim committee currently in place that will provide these modalities.
“It is automatic that I am a member of the APC as a member of one of the legacy parties.
“But I have to go to my ward to physically register just like every member is required to register.
“It’s not like, because I am carrying a CPC card then it will suffice. No. Everybody will have to be registered to become a member.
“The legacy parties (ANPP, CPC, ACN) are meeting on Tuesday next week to work out some of these modalities. It is a huge task before them. I don’t envy these 35 folks at all.
“It is when an elected executive is in place that they can draw up the necessary modalities on how candidates will emerge.”
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