Tinubu neglecting, sidelining the north despite campaign promises, says ACF BoT chair

Bashir Dalhatu, chairman of the board of trustees (BoT) of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has accused President Bola Tinubu of “neglecting and sidelining” the northern part of the country.

Speaking at a two-day interactive session in Kaduna on Tuesday, Dalhatu alleged that Tinubu’s administration sidelined the north despite massive support he received from the region in the 2023 elections.

The interactive session on government-citizen engagement was organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF) to review Tinubu’s electoral promises to the north.

The theme of the event was “Assessing electoral promises: Fostering government-citizens engagement for national unity”.

Dalhatu recalled how presidential candidates of major political parties, including Tinubu, attended an interactive session in Kaduna on October 17, 2022.

He noted that during the interactive session, Tinubu promised to address the challenges facing the north.

“In that meeting, we presented to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu a written address containing details of the issues of urgent concern to the people of Northern Nigeria,” he said.

“In turn, he gave us his own written document containing details of the issues he believed were of concern to the north and how he intended to address them.”

The ACF BoT chairman said northerners voted for Tinubu massively during the 2023 elections and got over five million votes from the region.

He alleged that Tinubu’s appointments, infrastructural projects, and social services are “openly skewed against” the north.

“Two years into the four-year tenure of President Tinubu, the feeling among the people of the north is, to put it mildly, completely mixed,” he said.

“To our surprise, those who did not support him, did not vote, and hardly wished him well have emerged from nowhere and are trying to push a wedge between him and the north.

“Whether or not they are succeeding, we do not know. But we cannot pretend not to observe that President Tinubu’s budget priorities, his infrastructural projects, his appointments, and other executive actions have, over the last two years, largely sidelined northern Nigeria.

“The federal government’s budget priorities, infrastructural projects, investments, and even social services have been openly skewed against Northern Nigeria.”

He accused the president of allegedly doing little or nothing to address the major issues of concern to the north.

Dalhatu said the biggest challenge facing the north is insecurity, pointing out that “over the last decade, widespread violence, characterised by massacres, bombings, cattle rustling, kidnapping, and other manifestations of conflict and insecurity, has swept across northern Nigeria, crippling almost all productive economic activities and social progress”.

“Even as we speak, this crisis shows no signs of abating. The insurgent groups continue to multiply, their attacks becoming more deadly,” he added.