Alhaji Shettima Yerima, the national leader of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, claimed that President Bola Tinubu, who he described as a “pro-democracy activist,” is no longer residing in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Yerima claimed that the individuals who battled alongside the president to install the country’s embryonic democracy now have doubts about him.
The National President of the AYCF, a former Youth Director of NADECO, a political pressure group that opposed the late General Sani Abacha military junta in the early 1990s, stated that he hoped, based on the current policies of the ruling APC administration, that President Tinubu had not been taken over by the typical “Aso Rock Cabal” as was the case in the past.
Speaking with Arewa PUNCH, Yerima, said, “Some of us now have our reservations about the President. The Bola Tinubu that I know and that I once worked in the trenches is a totally different person now. I hope it’s not what I am thinking, and I don’t want to believe that he would be hijacked by the same characters.
“I expect that by the coming of Tinubu, certain things would have happened where he would begin to believe in this present generation than the old men of the past who had worked with him and the same people coming back tactically behind the doors. Some of them have a lot of influence on the government. I hope that he will not allow himself to be carried away.
“He should learn from what happened to his predecessor. I hope he will be remembered positively because my prayers are that this present government that I ascribed as ‘our government’ should live up to expectations.
“I have my reasons when I said it’s our government. It is our government because it’s a product of our struggle. Even though I have worked closely with him and recently, from a far distance, I still relate very well to him. I am one of those behind the scenes with my counterpart, Muhajid Asari Dokubo, making statements for Tinubu’s presidency.”
The youth leader admonished the president to learn from former President Muhammadu Buhari, who surrounded himself with those who caged him while presiding over the affairs of the country between 2015 and 2023.
