Northern candidate best for APC - Elders' forum

The Northern Elders' Forum has said it would be in the best interest of the All Progressives Congress to field a northerner for the 2015 presidential election.

In an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, the Deputy Chairman of the forum, Dr. Paul Unongo, said the North was ready to work with the APC, because the chance of having a northerner emerging as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party was becoming non-existent.

Unongo added that the forum and other groups in the North were ready to support the emergence of the best presidential aspirant from the North on the platform of APC.

He noted that the APC's decision to throw its presidential ticket open to all regions of the country was a politically correct decision, which would not affect the chances of a northerner emerging as the party's candidate.

He said, 'I respect the APC very much. I think for the growth of this nation, political parties should throw their party ticket open to people from every region of the country. But we, in the Northern Elders Forum, will work within the provisions of the constitution, to choose not just any northerner, but a qualified Nigerian from any of the 19 northern states of the federation to be our candidate.

'We believe that a person, whose interest coincides with our interest of developing the North and the rest of Nigeria, will do better than what Jonathan has done. We believe that if there is no opportunity for us in the PDP, there must be another party where we, the politicians and intellectuals in the North, can go and fight for our candidate to win.'

Unongo said the North had worked together with the Action Congress of Nigeria, which was one of the parties that formed the APC, to elect Animu Tambuwal, a northerner, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, against the plan of the PDP. He said that was an indication that the North and APC could collaborate in 2015.