By Seun Opejobi The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, AYCF, has charged Southeast governors to protect the lives and properties of No...
By Seun Opejobi
The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, AYCF, has charged
Southeast governors to protect the lives and properties of Northerners living
as minorities in the region.
AYCF National President, Yerima Shettima, made the call
while reacting to the sit-at-home ordered by a faction of the Indigenous People
of Biafra, IPOB.
The enforcement of the sit-at-home order had led to the
escalation of violence across the Southeast.
However, Shettima condemned what he called the mindless,
unrelenting violent disturbances created by certain interest groups in the
South-East, in the form of the agitation for a separate State of Biafra.
A statement by Shettima reads: “Aware that the perpetrators
of violence relentlessly pursuing this agenda of destruction and collective
mayhem, fervently hope it will engulf the entire country and bring about mass
killings and suffering of innocent people, the AYCF is today calling for
guaranteed protection of the lives and properties of Northerners in the entire
southeast.
“We are worried that often the mindless violence and
extremist terrorist actions perpetrated by IPOB and its followers in the
South-East results in long-practised tactics of attacks against northerners and
agents and symbols of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“We are therefore compelled to demand from the South-East
Governors action to ensure an environment in which the Northerner is safe and
secure wherever he chooses to live and work in the Southeast just as the North
is ready to support other Nigerians to benefit from our tolerance and
accommodation if they show appropriate respect for the context of their
livelihoods.
“It is in our culture to welcome and live with outsiders,
and we must never be tired of reminding other Nigerians that the laws of the
land demand that every Nigerian lives and earns his legitimate living in any
part of Nigeria without discrimination or molestation.”
He, however, said the North is very much aware that the
current Southeast governors are showing some level of commitment in resisting
the terrorist tactics of the IPOB, unlike their predecessors.
“We also commend the renewed gallantry of our troops under
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to checkmate the manoeuvres of all terror outfits
in the country, ” he said.
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