The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), a prominent quasi-political and socio-cultural group in the north has pledged continuous support to the administration of president Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima.
The group made the pledge when its leadership paid a courtesy visit to the Vice President at the presidential villa, Abuja to extend an invitation to him ahead of the 25th anniversary of the ACF.
The Chairman of the ACF Board of Trustees, Bashir Dalhatu, expressed delight over the work relationship between President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima as well as other sons and others from the northern region.
According to Dalhatu, the Vice President remains the number one ambassador of the north in the government, showing total loyalty to the president and working not just for the good of the north but Nigeria as a whole.
‘For us northerners, the Vice President is our number one ambassador. His image is carrying our spirit, our image, our aspiration, and we have noticed that he has brought it into this administration.
‘He has supported the president a 100 per cent. We are very proud of the support he and all our sons and daughters are giving to this government’, The ACF BoT Chairman said.
He said he ACF remains committed to supporting the President Tinubu-led government to succeed.
‘They are excellent ambassadors. We are proud of them and we shall continue to support them. But, we shall also continue to point out to them areas that we think we can make improvement to the benefit of all Nigerians not just to the north’, Bashir added.
The Arewa Consultative Forum was established in the year 2000 to promote the political interest of people of northern Nigeria.
Giving the scorecard of the Forum, the ACF BoT Chairman said ACF has intervened in many areas in the north and Nigeria as whole.
According to him, ‘When the forum was established in the year 2000, there were quite a few numbers of other socio-cultural organisations. But the leadership at that time – the governors, the emirs and chiefs, the sultan and everybody – the leadership of the north met together and said let us create one single organization that can unite our people, and then move on in the same spirit and unite the country. We have done so.
‘We have intervened in many areas of conflict in the north. We have given advice. We have written papers. We have visited and discussed. We have even intervened in many areas of economic development and social intervention programmes. We hope to carry forward this attitude.
‘Before ACF came in, there were so many areas of conflict in the north. Even though they have not finished completely, but we have succeeded in reducing a lot of it, and now, I think everybody can see the difference.
‘Two, we have continued to propagate and sensitize people on how best to be self-reliant, and how best to join efforts to create a good economy for northern Nigeria, and consequently move in to contribute in the development of the economy of this country’.
The ACF leadership said it hoped to use the silver jubilee anniversary to foster peace and unity among the different regions and tribes of Nigeria for the progress of the country.
‘We are creating this occasion to create goodwill, peace and good wishes to Nigerians. We have invited other socio-cultural organisations in the south, like the Afinifere, the PANDEF and the Ohaneze Ndi-Igbo, so that they can come and share with us this happy moment of spending 25 years in progress, and hope to also visit and learn from all walks of life of Nigerians on how best to continue to keep this country together united as one indivisible nation in progress’, Dalhatu said.
