National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Bodejo, has said that the association will not support any Southern candidate for the presidency in 2023.
Among the Southerners that have declared interest to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari are National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu; Dele Momodu; Isaac Ositelu, a businessman and former governor of Imo State and senator representing Imo West, Rochas Okorocha.
In an interview with The Sun, Bodejo said Northerners manage the country better than their counterparts in the South.
He said, “Even though Nigeria is one, we are not going to support a southerner as president. A president from the North is better because Northerners are better managers of the nation than southerners.
“The North has demonstrated that there is no difference among them in the region. They don’t show this is Fulani, this is Hausa, and this is this and that, unlike in the South. Northern people have managed the country better than Southerners.
“If your enemy asks you to join him to scatter your father’s house, can you support him to break your father’s house? You shouldn’t do that. But if he overshadows you and you help him to accomplish that, you would cry later.
“It will be very difficult for a southerner to manage Nigeria the way a Northerner would. The Northerners that are ruling or governing were trained by our leaders that ruled the country before.”
Bodejo also spoke on the grazing routes, adding that states should return areas earlier marked for reserves to herders.
He also accused Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue, of “playing politics with the Fulani”.
“Ortom wants to be a hero by force. After the end of his tenure, even to be a councillor in his village, he can’t get it. He is doing politics with the Fulani.
“He was the first person that called for the stoppage of Fulani from grazing their cattle, but we went to court to stop his evil plot and that is why he is running here and there, asking Buhari to declare Fulani organisations as terrorist groups,” he said.