Crisis appears to have engulfed the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) as the Forum has rejected and distanced itself from the press statement issued by Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed, its Director of Publicity and Advocacy.

It would be recalled that Dr. Hakeem Baba Ahmed had on Monday this week issued a statement where he had asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to act fast and save millions of Nigerians from current starvation and hardship.

Ahmed said: “We believe that the administration has erred in embarking on major decisions before it even took its first faltering steps.

“Attempts to correct mistakes have not been very successful, and these have been made worse by the barrage of plans and policies being hinted at, which will make life even more intolerable for the Nigerians.

“Where efforts have been made to correct mistakes, they appeared too hastily decided and will, in the long term, do little to relieve the desperate challenges of daily living of Nigerians.”

Ahmed further said the first few weeks of President Tinubu’s administration would be recorded by history as an act of leadership that made bad situations considerably worse and failed to explain why.

However, in a swift reaction, Prof. Doknan Sheni, Director General of NEF, explained that the write-up and the contents were not the views of the Directors of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), and therefore does not represent the views of NEF on the Administration.

According to Sheni, “The attention of the directorate of Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has been drawn to a publication credited to Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed, Director of Publicity, titled “ADVISE TO THE TINUBU ADMINISTRATION“, dated 31 July 2023.

“We wish to state categorically that the write-up and the contents were not the views of the Directors of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), and therefore do not represent the views of NEF on the Administration.

“This was the personal opinion of Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed. NEF has a procedure for approving such press releases.

“The acceptable position is that any such statements must first be subjected to scrutiny by the Directorate after which it would be forwarded to the Convener for ratification.

“This procedure was not followed in this case.

“Therefore NEF hereby distances itself from this publication and all its ramifications.” (Daily Independent)

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