The National Union of Blacksmith and Thinkers Workers of Nigeria (NUBTWN) has endorsed the candidacy of Senators Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima for the Feb. 25 Presidential election.
National Secretary of the union, Alhaji Ishaku Kontagorah, announced the endorsement on behalf of other members at a forum in Abuja on Monday.
The forum attended by blacksmithers across the 19 northern was organised by project 774, a National Support Group for Tinubu’s presidency
Ishaku said the union was established in 1987 to improve standard of its production from old method to new technology to meet the demand of the nation.
According to him ,the association has more than 4 million members in Nigeria, with experience in production of cutlasses, planting machines, holes, harrowing tools, fertilizer application machines and among other simple implements.
He said it was the vision of the union to be the formost technological producer and consistently offer services both locally and international by supplying quality products to practitioners in agriculture and other sectors.
He said given the current development and support by the current government, the union was endorsing the candidacy of Tinubu and Shettima for the presidential election.
He said the endorsement wound ensure the APC government continue the good work started by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said members of the union, who were blacksmithers and thinkers across the nation were satisfied with antecedent of Tinubu and his agenda for Nigeria expecially his plan for a bottom up approach of development.
The National Coordinator of Project 774, Sen.Sabi Abdullahi said project 774 was designed to mobilise grass roots support for politics, to positively affect the local people.
According to him,project 774 for Tinubu and Shettima , which is a national grass root support group was designed to mobilise grass root support for Tinubu and Shettima.
Abdullahi, expressed gratitude to members of the union for making the endorsement possible.
“We believe that the project 774 should be local ,it should be butoom up and our hope is to make sure we get to those, who are affected with what ever we do in our government.”
He said ,he had course to engage with the blacksmithers and thinkers union through his empowerment scheme as Representative of Niger-North in the Senate
Abdullahi said Nigeria and most part of the north was reputed for agriculture, adding that buck of the rural populace, who engage in agriculture can not do so without the tools produced by the blacksmithers.
“There is no village or market that you go to, that you not will see the blacksmith or the Thinkers.
” And so this group of people represent a part of our agriculture heritage and hence I did the empowerment.
“This informed their desire to stand with our presidential candidate Sen.Tinubu who has shown tremendous interest in the development of this nation, and he does that via bottom top development process.”
He said Tinubu has demonstrated his bottom up development approach with what he has done in Lagos state, adding that his running mate Shettima has also shown knack to bring development from the bottom up approach.
Abdullahi said the group coming to endorse the candidature of Tinubu was significant because they were in every single village and town across Nigeria.
“This group, we have here that are also in all the northern Nigeria is a force that we can not ignore on any way,
“So I thank you all from the 19 northern state for coming,if Nigeria is to succeed we can not underrate your role in agriculture.
“This group has the skill to contribute and when they have been upgraded, as we have done in the empowerment scheme I did, they have a lot to contribute in developing new tools and supporting farmers production capacity with the tools.”
Abdullahi said Tinubu’s presidency would be inclusive and bottom to up.
