“Therefore, we are warning Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as long as he is interested in coming back in 2027, as long as he is interested in the votes of the Northerners, to reverse these unconstitutional decisions. Whoever is advising him to take such decisions is an enemy of the country”
Katsina Elders
The Katsina Elders’ Forum has warned President Bola Tinubu against the plan to relocate the refurbished airport rescue and firefighting vehicles project of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua International Airport in Katsina to the South or risk the votes of Northerners in 2027.
ASHENEWS reports that recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) under the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development announced the relocation of some of their departments to Lagos.
The secretary of the forum, Aliyu Mohammed, while addressing journalists on Wednesday evening, also warned the president against relocating certain departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to the Southern part of the country.
According to the forum, the relocation is a premeditated attempt to cripple the socio-economic activities of Northern Nigeria.
It also alleged that the contractor of the refurbished airport rescue and firefighting vehicles project of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua International Airport had written to the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Festus Keyamo, demanding its relocation for flimsy reasons.
The forum further said that President Tinubu was being ill-advised by those he termed enemies of Nigeria, who does not want the unity of the country, to relocate the Katsina airport project, CBN departments and FAAN to the Southern part of the country.
“Therefore, we are warning Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as long as he is interested in coming back in 2027, as long as he is interested in the votes of the Northerners, to reverse these unconstitutional decisions. Whoever is advising him to take such decisions is an enemy of the country.
“Such a person is not interested in the Nigeria project. And the North is not afraid of telling Tinubu to his face that we are not ready to re-elect him in 2027 once he starts moving all these critical departments to Lagos,” Mohammad said.
He, however, accused the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, of deploying all tactics to infiltrate Abuja with kidnappers to fine-tune the federal government plan of relocating such projects.
According to him, “The FCT Minister is inviting the Israelis to come and provide security to Abuja. We have never known anything like kidnapping in Abuja until Wike came into Abuja as a minister.”
The secretary of the forum called on President Tinubu to focus on tackling the myriad of security challenges besetting the North rather than relocating economic-boosting projects from the region to other parts of the country.
“Despite the insecurity situation in the North, Tinubu is not making any effort to curb the insecurity and is moving all these departments”, he added.