Former governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has called on Nigerians to always pray for President Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders instead of cursing them.
He said leadership comes with a very huge challenge that many people are unaware of.
His words : “When I see people criticise leaders on what they know nothing about, I pray for them because you will only know the challenges of this country when you are saddled with responsibility.
” You know the complex situation of our country. When we have leaders, we should pray for them that God should intervene, we should not curse our leaders.”
Sheriff stated this in Abuja while receiving members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) pressure group, under the aegis of Frontier for Quality Leadership and Good Governance.
On the 2023 general elections, he said the next president of Nigeria should emerge on the basis of capacity regardless of where he or she comes from.
Sheriff said, “What you are doing is the right course, unless we all believe in ourselves as a nation, and believe all of us are equal, and believe that a good leader will emerge from any part of the country, regardless of his religion, tribe or where he comes from, we will not succeed in getting the country we dearly love.”
He said Nigerians must put their differences aside and look for leaders from anywhere and also believe that leadership is from God. He noted that nobody makes himself a leader, saying that it is only God who chooses a leader.
“If you must blame any leader, you must look at the followers. What have we done to help our leaders to be strong? We have to do soul searching,” he added.
Sheriff urged Nigerians to look for a leader who can bring succour to the people just as he stressed the need for prayers for leaders.
“If the man that will bring succour to Nigeria is coming from a mountain in Ogoja, we should go and look for him, if it is in the extreme end of Adamawa, we should go and look for him. If he is coming from the end of Anambra, we should go and look for him. We must do soul-searching and look for a leader.
He said Nigeria, which is the largest black nation in the world with more than 300 tribes and languages, is a very interesting country.
Sheriff, who disclosed that he has been consulting on how the party can be repositioned in post Buhari era, added that the APC cannot collapse. He said, “We need a good captain. I will go into the race if it is zoned to my place. But if not, we will look for a better candidate.”
