The word "northerners" is correct and usable in written English
You can use it to refer to people who come from a region in the north of a country or area, or people who live in the north. For example: "Northerners tend to have a hardy character due to the harsher climate in the upper part of the country."
Mr Yar'Adua, a northern Muslim, died before his first term had ended.But some powerful northerners are among Mr Jonathan's allies and they may support his bid.
President Laurent Gbagbo, a southerner, has won popular support mostly by appealing to southerners' fear of northerners and foreigners, which makes it hard for him to make peace with northern rebels.Nonetheless, the South African government, which brokered the deal, is confident that it will succeed.
There is no guarantee that the groups of voters with whom the Tories struggle – women, black and minority ethnics, northerners or Scots – will respond favourably to Johnson.
But will this go far enough to address northerners' feelings of being shut out of politics?
According to the Labour Uncut blog, Shakespeare told an LGA executive meeting that northerners affected by rising unemployment and public sector cuts should take up fruit collecting: "The north may replace the Romanians in the cherry orchards … and that may be a good thing".
And ultimately, the most difficult number for David Cameron is that 60% of those northerners questioned concluded that his decision to support same-sex marriages will either make them think more negatively about them or has had no change on their already negative perceptions of the PM.
Outside of the leadership, there are sensible voices such as David Skelton and his Renewal group, who are actively trying to rebuild a Toryism that is attractive to working-class people and northerners.
This came to public attention, and the courts, when in 2008, during a match against the big northern team Lens, the supporters of Paris Saint-Germain unfurled a banner that read: Pédophiles, chômeurs, consanguins: bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Paedophiles, unemployed, inbreds: meet the Northerners).
The public agrees, though their certainty has less to do with economics than misanthropy: the British do not like southern Europeans enough to offer them a subsidy union, and have never believed that other rich northerners, deep down, felt differently.British politicians can be forgiven a degree of passivity, then.
One problem is the evisceration of national politics: whatever citizens may vote for, southerners end up with more austerity and northerners must pay for more bail-outs.
To the horror of many Nigerians, Ibrahim Babangida, a former military ruler, has also expressed an interest in the PDP ticket.But some northerners say Mr Jonathan should himself be considered, despite the customary system of rotation.
