A coalition of northern youth groups of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has protested about the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari and 11 Northern governors seeking for a Southern presidential candidate to clinch the APC’s presidential ticket ahead of the 2023 elections.

Vanguard reports that the youth groups, APC Progressives Youth Elements and North-East Youth Forum of APC, who protested in Bauchi on Sunday, June 5, said that the governors were selfish to have agreed that power should go to the South.

The protesting youths carried various placards with inscriptions such as“It’s North or Nothing”, “We are not in support of power shift to South”, “We will not accept the decision of eleven governors”, and “It’s in their selfish interest” .

Speaking for one of the groups, the President of APC Progressives Youth Elements, Alamin Bala Mai’auduga, said that it’s not time for the South to rule the country.

“We condemn the action of the 11 northern governors that supported southern candidature. We the Northern youths do not think it is time for any southerner to assume the mantle of leadership.  What the governors did is for their selfish interest.

We the Northern youths, who are about 70 percent of the total population of the country, are saying no. We are calling on our able National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, to weigh in on this and find lasting solution to this issue. We are not going to support any southern candidate. These 11 governors that made the decision are not the only people in the North. They are doing it for their selfish interests,” he said

On his part, the leader of the APC Youth Forum, Ibrahim Hashim Abdullahi, alleged that the governors opted for such an option so that one of them would benefit from being appointed as vice president.

He lamented that with the hunger, insecurity, and poverty in the region, power needs to be retained for development.

“We will not endorse any candidate from the South, except the North. We are far left behind” he warned