An Arewa political action group has formally endorsed the candidature of the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. The announcement was made at a press conference addressed by the group's national chairman, Mahmoud El-Hassan, at the Nigeria Union of Journalists State Secretariat in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The group declared that the former vice president was the man for the job. It framed its move as a historic decision, taken after what it described as extensive consultation among its members, and presented the endorsement as the considered position of an organised political bloc rather than a hasty choice.
Central to the announcement was the group's decision to break away from the ruling All Progressives Congress. The members said they had resolved to dissociate themselves entirely from a party which, in their view, had failed to deliver meaningful progress for the nation and for the northern part of the country in particular.
In explaining that break, the group pointed to what it called severe economic hardship and a downward economic trajectory across the country. It also cited widespread insecurity as one of the central reasons for abandoning the governing party, presenting both as evidence that the current direction was not working for ordinary Nigerians.
Having left the APC, the group said it had formally adopted the African Democratic Congress as its new platform. It described the ADC as the political vehicle capable of rescuing both the nation and the region, casting the party as the vehicle through which it now intends to pursue its political goals.
To underline the weight it claimed to carry, the group put its total registered membership at 696,947. By citing that figure, the leaders sought to present their endorsement as the voice of a substantial body of supporters rather than the decision of a small circle of officials.
It was on that basis, the chairman said, that the group moved to back Atiku Abubakar. After what it called a unanimous deliberation, the bloc endorsed the former vice president as its preferred presidential candidate under the ADC, formalising a shift that had been building through its consultations.