Atiku did not lose the 2023 presidential election – Arewa Youth Leader

Comrade Elliot Afiyo is the National President of the Northern Youth Leaders Forum (NYLF), the umbrella organization of 42 Northern youth groups founded in 1994 by the Northern Traditional, Military, Political, and Religious Leaders to propagate and protect the northern political and economic interests within the national interest.

Comrade (Dr.) Elliot Afiyo is also the Secretary-General of the Association of West African Monarchs (AWAM), the umbrella body of traditional rulers in West Africa. In this interview with journalists in Abeokuta, Comrade Afiyo shares his thoughts on the 2023 general elections.

Question: Comrade sir, since 1999, your forum has secured victories for candidates you endorsed and supported at all levels. But in the last presidential elections, former vice president Atiku lost in spite of all your support and endorsement. What went wrong, sir?

Comrade Afiyo:

Thank you very much. I want to tell you categorically that Atiku did not lose the 2023 presidential election because there wasn’t any candidate that met the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election. It was a conspiracy in dietriabe to declare Tinubu the winner of that election for fear of a rerun. The 2023 presidential election was full of betrayals, conspiracies, and deceptions.

Q: But your forum couldn’t make the difference, like the previous elections since 1999.

Comrade Afiyo:

Our forum has performed the best ever since 1999. For the first time, our forum faced the toughest and most challenging election and came out with good results, especially in the North-East and North-West geopolitical zones.

Q: How tough was the election, sir?

Comrade Afiyo:

You see, I held a press conference in Kano two weeks before the elections and drew the attention of our presidential candidate to an organized deception and betrayal. All the APC governors that promised to work for Atiku changed their minds three days before the elections because of the senseless and leucitic statement made by one of Atiku’s campaign spokesmen that Atiku would investigate and jail them.

Secondly, the statement made by Atiku that he was going to restructure the country even at the detriment of his life made the Fulani elites work against him.

Thirdly, 85% of the people Atiku made PCC members also betrayed him because the dollars given to them for logistics and mobilization were only shared amongst and between them. They had erroneous and lithifying confidence that, with or without mobilization, Atiku would win.

Fourthly, the people who were sincerely and honestly working for Atiku were sidelined, barricaded, excluded, and isolated. Thanks to some of our patrons who saw all these things and decided to mobilize us, we have also gotten some assistance from international organizations. These mobilizations, coupled with our determination and commitments, made the difference in the voting outcome.

We saw ourselves fighting against the collective decision of the Northern Governors, Fulani Elites, and religious leaders from both the Islamic and Christian religions.

The Imams were heavily mobilized with millions of dollars, while the statement made by Governor El-Rufai about the northern Christian population also encouraged and gingered the Christian clerics to mobilize Christians to waste their votes for Obi so as to prove El-Rufai wrong and teach him and his cohorts a protogenetic and dangerous lesson. The ethnic angle was also given priority in some states like Kogi, Kwara, and Niger. You can now see the forces NYLF faced and how they still ensured that Atiku won in the North.

Q: Why Niger State?

Comrade Afiyo:

Whether you believe it or not, Asiwaju has a link with the Nupes.

Q: Are you saying Tinubu did not win the 2023 presidential election?

Comrade Afiyo:

I am telling you without fear of contradiction that Tinubu did not win the election that meets the constitutional requirements, even after the results were doctored. Prof. Yakubu knew it, and he made up his mind to announce a rerun. Thirty minutes after the announcement, he was summoned, and the decision was changed. Alterations and doctoring of results were made, which is why he reluctantly staged a podiatric coup against democracy and Nigerians, by going ahead and announcing Tinubu as the winner at about 4 a.m.

Q: Sir, are you saying that Prof. Yakubu staged a coup?

Comrade Afiyo:

Prof. Yakubu is a learn-tic coupist by every reasoning. Coups are normally announced in the early hours of the day, and that is what he did. I will not be surprised if Prof. Yakubu is arrested and tried for treasonable felony in the near future.

Q: But the Northern Elders Forum and the Arewa Consultative Forum supported Atiku?

Comrade Afiyo:

All these pressure groups are constituted for political relevance and financial patronage. They are far from translating into political victories. Unfortunately, the aspirants and the candidates patronize them to the detriment of the youth groups. Some of these individuals are not known in their localities. And if they are known, they cannot command political fellowship and followership, which will translate to political voting and, by extension, political victories.

Q: Sir, so you agree with Governor El-Rufai that they don’t control votes?

Comrade Afiyo:

I totally agree with him because he said nothing but the truth. How many of these elders will secure a political victory for their councillors, not to mention the presidency? The governors and the youth leaders control and determine the direction of voting in the North. The clerics are far more politically savvy than these elders.

The only aspect with which I disagree with EL-Rufai is his denigration and localization of the elders by calling them ‘so-called elders’ and his statement on the Northern Christians, which has caused major division among the Northerners. If care is not taken or more awareness is not created, it will be very difficult for a Northerner to win a presidential election in the near future in a free and fair election unless that Northerner is a Muslim and must come from one of the minority tribes.

Q: President Buhari said that Atiku lost the election because of overconfidence and complacency.

Comrade Afiyo:

That’s very true—overconfidence in the sense that PCC members were doing what they felt like. Even the presidential candidate and his running mate were deliberately ignoring some stakeholders. The support groups were ignored and downgraded. The G5 governors were termed and considered inconsequential. The Governor of Bauchi, who is very popular and influential in the country, especially among the Northern Youth, was isolated not until I decided to take an action that may be so devastating before he was visited and invited for negotiation.

Let me tell you the truth: most of the key members of the PCC of the PDP worked against Atiku because they have an interest in 2027, and Atiku winning this election will block them. This is another reason why they pocketed the dollars, thereby frustrating the genuine efforts of Atiku’s supporters.

Another factor that causes complacency is the appointment of his spokesmen, who were caucus members of the APC. These were people truly known to Tinubu, and whatever they said was not given any serious consideration.

You can see Senator Dino saying ALLAH YA ISA to the PDP in 2015. The same Dino will say ALLAH YA ISA to APC in 2019 and 2023. Spiritually, any candidate for whom Dino becomes his or her spokesman under the PDP or APC will never win the election because he has used the same tongue to curse the parties.

Q: Sir, we read in some national dailies prior to the elections that some emirs threatened to assassinate you if Atiku won the election in their states. How true is this statement?

 Comrade Afiyo:

Absolutely true; two of them told our coordinators that they would assassinate me if Atiku won in their states. I personally called them to confirm the story, and they affirmed it. These threats made me relocate to one of the states and inform the Emir that I was there to ensure that Atiku wins in all the states. I called some of our patrons, who mobilized funds for us. When Atiku won the state, I placed a call to the Emir, who later invited me for dinner in his palace. After dinner, he looked at me and said “Shege Batta jo”, and I smiled and said “Mi yeti barkama walla aibe”. And that was all.

Q: Sir, we were also told that Tinubu’s camp is making overtures for you to join the team.

Comrade Afiyo:

For now, I will not join them until the final pronouncement by the Supreme Court. In fact, the Northern Youth will never recognize Tinubu as President of Nigeria, even after the swearing-in and until the final pronouncement by the Supreme Court.

Q: Are you saying that the inauguration ceremony should be stopped?

Comrade Afiyo:

Under common sense or literal reasoning, the inauguration should have been done after the final pronouncement by the Court. But in a situation like this, one should not expect that to happen. Seriously, it is a major setback for our country. But I am quite sure that God’s will will prevail very soon.

Q: There was a story in one of the daily newspapers that you led a team of investigators from the UN and EU to visit the six geopolitical zones, and the team was sponsored by one of your patrons.

Comrade Afiyo:

The team was a fact-finding team. I was just privileged to guide them.

Q: What do we expect from you and your forum from now on?

 Comrade Afiyo:

For now, let us allow the will of God to prevail. This is the only country that we can call home. Enough of crises and the shedding of innocent blood. Let us all be law-abiding and give maximum support to the security agencies. Sooner or later, Nigerians will definitely rejoice.