The clerics made the endorsement at a meeting in Jigawa, which was also attended by six northern governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, Deputy Senate President Jibrin Barau and Housing Minister Muktar Ramalan.
Reacting to the endorsement, Professor Usman Yusuf described it as a big joke, insisting that the Muslim clerics do not represent him or millions of Muslims in Northern Nigeria.
I'm a Muslim, they are not representing me. They are not representing hundreds of millions of Muslims in Nigeria, particularly in the north, Yusuf said.
He said the clerics have the right to endorse President Tinubu on an individual basis but do not have the authority to endorse a president on behalf of millions of Nigerians.
They can go and endorse him on their individual basis. That is their prerogative and their right. But they cannot speak on my behalf or on the behalf of millions of Nigerians, he said.
Yusuf further accused some Muslim clerics of being involved in what he described as a scam, saying Nigerians have already seen through it and that the strategy used in 2023 cannot be sold to the people again.
And I've said it. There are Muslim Muslims scam, people have seen through that. And they can gather all they want. They can endorse all they want. They cannot sell this scam to our people again, Yusuf said.
According to him, the clerics are not representing anybody but themselves and getting allies, describing the development as a big shame.
He also insisted that using religious clerics to influence voters is an old political playbook and questioned whether the clerics can actually deliver the votes they are promising.
Yusuf said the Presidential Villa is disconnected from the people and may not understand the reality on the ground.
It's the villa that is not reading the people, because they are disconnected, he said.
He argued that anybody can go to the Villa and claim they can deliver a particular state, but that does not mean they can actually deliver the votes.
The scam they sold in 2023, they cannot sell that back again now, Yusuf declared.
He also challenged the governors to swear before the people while holding the Holy Book that they can deliver the votes they are promising President Tinubu.
If you ask them all, sit down, ask them to hold the holy book and swear to the people over there, and none of them will. And this is the honest truth, and they're not telling the president, he said.
Yusuf maintained that anybody who puts on religious garb and claims they can deliver votes cannot necessarily deliver anything.
Anybody that puts on religious garb and goes and says, I can deliver, they can't deliver nothing, he said.
He further stated that the clerics and governors cannot make the same claims they made in 2022, insisting that the people have changed and are now waiting for the 2027 election.
None of them can go into their mosques now and say what they said in 2022. This is the truth, Yusuf said.
He added that the governors and clerics know they have lost the people, warning that if they do not know, then they are disconnected from reality.
They know that. And if they don't know that, they must be smoking something. They know that, Yusuf concluded.
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