Former Governor of Zamfara State Sen. Ahmed Yerima, has declared his intention to contest the 2023 presidential election.
Yerima declared his intention after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
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The Nigerian leader received the former governor few minutes after returning from a two-day working visit to Ebonyi on Friday.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the closed door meeting with the president, Yerima said he would be seeking the presidential ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to enable him contest the forthcoming 2023 presidential election.
Speaking about his plans to set things straight for Nigeria, Yerima said he would be focusing on three critical areas, insecurity, poverty and ignorance.
According to him, if he gets elected as Nigerian president, he will be improving on the efforts of the Buhari administration.
Yerima, who caught national attention as governor when he introduced the Shari’a legal code in running Zamfara, also said he would be picking the APC nomination and expression of interest forms immediately.
“I’m here to inform the President of my intention to participate in the 2023 elections and to contest the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
”I’m going to, insha Allah, purchase my forms and officially declare my intention
“So, I have three points as well; to fight insecurity, fight poverty and ignorance,”he reiterated.
Speaking about his programme for Nigeria, if he is elected as President, Yerima, who represented Zamfara West Senatorial District and served as Minority Leader at the Senate said:
“I’m sure every Nigerian knows that Mr. President has done his best and today, our challenges are still new developments of insecurity and armed banditry.
”Boko Haram is gone, but we have new challenges of insecurity, armed banditry and poverty, because of the world economic problems. And there is still a lot of ignorance in our society.
“I have three points as well; to fight insecurity, fight poverty, and ignorance. Some people think that if you say ignorance, you’re talking of only western education, no. Illiteracy is different from ignorance.
”There are people who are professors, who are well educated in western terms, but they’re ignorant of their society.
“That is why you see people talking about rotational presidency, as if it is an allocation of power.
”Constitution of Nigeria is very clear, every Nigeria is qualified to contest so long as he reaches age prescribed for different offices.
”So, every Nigerian is qualified so long as he follows the constitutional provisions of this country to contest for any office and aspire to in any office of this country”, he said.
Responding to a question on the perception of him in some quarters, as a religious extremist, following the decision of his administration to enforce the Shari’a Islamic legal code on the state, he said he did not violate the Nigerian Constitution as he never compelled anyone to abandon his or her religion and embrace Islam.
“On the issue of Shari’a, I’m a Muslim and I say everywhere I go, that I am a Muslim and I want to die as a Muslim. like I said, I’m going to fight the problem of ignorance and this is one of it.
”People don’t know, a lot of people don’t know that the Constitution of Nigeria, Section 38, has provides for freedom of religion, including freedom to change your religion, if you want to.
”To practice alone, or in community with others, in private or in public.
“As a governor of the state, I followed the constitutional provision, prepared a law, sent it to state assembly and they pass it into law and I implemented what the Constitution of Nigeria has given me the powers to do and even in the Zamfara State, I have never, never required or asked or forced any Christian to follow Islamic faith because I would have done an unconstitutional act.
“If I’m elected, by the grace of God, I’m going to be elected under the Constitution and I’m going to take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of Nigeria.
”So, I will never do anything unconstitutional”, he said.
On his solution to the security crisis in the country, he said “like I said, Mr. President has addressed the issue of Boko Haram and the new problem of armed banditry in the Northwest and Northcentral, as you said, all we need to do is to first of all, if you look at Ethiopia today, they have a population of just a little over 50 million and they have more than one million policemen and women.
”Nigeria today, I don’t think we have up to one million police and we have a population of 250 million people.
“I believe that what we need to do is to employ more police officers and military officers, empower them, give them adequate training and equipment.
”Mr. President has already started buying aircrafts for the Air Force and so on.
”So, we need to increase the number of police officers and the military officers, give them adequate training and equipment and by the time we take care of their welfare, I’m sure this issue will be resolved”, he said.
Editor Paul Akhagbemhe
