Log In
updated 10:20 AM UTC, Dec 13, 2023

Nigeria General Election 2019: Northern Elders Forum (NEF) Moves Against Buhari

Unic Press UK: The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) chairman, Ango Abdullahi has issued a statement, calling on the people of northern Nigeria to vote against President Muhammadu Buhari who’s seeking a second term of office as Nigerian President.

Addressing journalists in Zaria, the retired professor and former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Ango Abdullahi lamented underdevelopment of the northern region and poverty in Nigeria.

“Two of the conditions we gave Buhari upon his assumption of office were that he should take concrete steps to address the abject poverty and underdevelopment in the North and he has woefully failed to marginally address any of them,” he said. The retired professor added that “Assuming that things are working in the North or in Nigeria as a whole, we would have taken a different position but everyone can see that things are not working under this government. Perhaps, as a prelude to where this government has taken this country, Buhari wasted six months before being able to set up his cabinet.”

Based on estimates by the World Poverty Clock, Nigeria overtook India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty on June 2018. And as of the time of this report, circa 88.3 million Nigerians are living in extreme poverty

The opposition political parties also chided the incumbent President Buhari, claiming that he’s overseeing an APC-led government that has failed to redeem pre-election pledges to wipe out the Boko Haram terrorist organization, provide full employment, tackle the Fulani cattle herders menace, improve health care, provide uninterrupted power supply.

Nigeria General Election 2019 would hold on Saturday, 16 February 2019, from 08:00 hrs (Lagos time).


Nigeria – Economic Indicators & Other Information

  • Consumer Price Index (CPI): The CPI which measures inflation increased 11.28 percent (year-on-year) in September 2018, illustrating a 0.05 percent points higher than the rate recorded in August 2018 (11.23). [National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria]
  • Q3 2017 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in nominal terms: “. . .aggregate GDP stood at ₦29,451,303.99 million in nominal terms.” (National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria)
  • Total Public Debt: ₦48.93 trillion [$134.89 billion] as of 30th June 2018.
  • Unemployment: “The unemployment rate increased from 14.2% in Q4 2016 to 16.2% in Q2 2017 and 18.8% in Q3 2017, the country’s Bureau of Statistics said in its report ‘Labor Force Statistics Vol. 1: Unemployment and Underemployment Report (Q1-Q3 2017)’of December 2017.
  • Population: 185.98 million as of 2016. (Source: World Bank). However, the current estimate is approximately 198 million based on Live update as of 26 October 2018.
  • The total land area is circa 910,770 Km2. (Source: World Bank).
  • Male life expectancy at birth is 46.8 years. (Source: Country Meters)
  • Female life expectancy at birth is 48.4 years. (Source: Country Meters)
  • Official exchange rate as of October 26, 2018: $1= ₦306.55. (Source: Central Bank of Nigeria)
Tagged under

Leave a Reply