Association of Northern Nigerian Students (ANNS) has thrown its weight behind former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to vie for the country’s presidency in 2023.
The group says it is moved by Atiku’s plan to empower one million youths and women through his National Open Apprenticeship Programme, which, it says, will address the lingering question of unemployment.
Describing the former vice president as business-oriented, the national vice president of the association, Comrade Sani Adamu, in a press conference yesterday in Bauchi said that the association’s resolve to throw its weight behind Atiku was to salvage Nigeria from the looming economic doom.
He hailed Atiku’s national apprenticeship programme in his 2019 policy document that proposed the training of one million youths and women every year on different skills.
“The association describes Atiku as a bridge-builder, strategist par excellence and person with the best mind in terms of practical ideas on youth development and nation-building”, he said.
Sani claimed that there are 12.1 million students of northern extraction in the country and promised to embark on massive mobilization on the need for them to register and vote in the forthcoming 2023 elections.
He noted that in the past elections the turnout of students was low and said that, as an influential association, ANNS will be in the forefront of entrenching democracy, development and education in the nation
He said the association would mobilize youths to elect a visionary president as the panacea to engender the rebirth of a new Nigeria.
“After careful consultations with relevant stakeholders, students union leaders, many students across various tertiary institutions in northern Nigeria and after going through Atiku Abubakar’s Policy document plan to get Nigeria working again, the leadership of this great association was convinced about the plan and manifesto of Atiku Abubakar, particularly on education sector and youth Development.”
“We therefore officially pass a vote of confidence on his Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for the position of the president, the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the upcoming 2023 general election”, he added.
