North will vote Tinubu — Shekarau, Lalong assure APC NWC

Former Kano State Governor, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, and former Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong on Tuesday assured the party leadership that the electorate from the Northern part of the country would be swayed to return President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in next January’s presidential election.

Shekarau and Lalong made the pledge when they led members of the Arewa for Asiwaju (A4A) on a courtesy visit to APC National Chairman, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, and his National Working Committee.

Senator Shekarau, who noted that the region has the highest voting population, said his group was committed to mobilising support for the APC presidential candidate.

He said: “The A4A concept is an idea put together to ensure the mobilisation of the teeming population up here in the north, 19 northern states, and the FCT. We’re very conscious of the number of the voters in the north, which is the largest compared to our brothers up in the south.

“We do not in any way intend to show any division as to what the north stands for and what the south stands for. We stand for the progress of Nigeria. We stand for the success of APC across the country. But while doing that, we want to make sure our whole, the north, with the largest population, the largest number of voters are mobilised to ensure that the number that we’ve been boasting about, the number that has always been the highest in all elections, is not only repeated, but more than tripled compared to previous numbers.

“So this is exactly what we are out to do, and we have taken note of all the statistics.”

The former Minister of Education dismissed claims by certain opposition party politicians from the North that the region has been marginalised under Tinubu’s administration.

“This movement has also identified all the achievements by Asiwaju’s government across the north. In fact, many of us were very surprised, positively, when the National Secretary of the party reeled out the various achievements, projects, programmes, that have been carried out, some of them ongoing, up in the north, most of which are unknown to the large population in the north, except the pockets of areas where such projects are going on.

“We intend to expose these projects to all concerned in the north, so that we change the narrative of Tinubu has not done anything, Tinubu has neglected the north. We know this is coming from the negative side, opposition and some innocent northerners, who are not necessarily doing so out of ignorance.”

In his remarks, the APC National Chairman thanked them for the visit and their collective commitment towards the victory of President Tinubu.