The Federal Government has placed all security agencies in the country on red alert over the position of a coalition of Northern groups, including the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, which on Tuesday gave all Igbos residents in the 19 Northern states a three-month ultimatum to quit or be forced out after the expiration of the October 1, 2017, deadline.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this while answering questions from State House correspondents after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
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Mohammed assured Nigerians that security agencies are on top of the matter, adding that the statement was capable of destabilising the country.
He observed that such development did not start now.
He said, “The issue of one or two groups issuing statements that are capable of destabilising the polity and then being responded to by another group, I think did not just start today or did not start yesterday.
“What I want to assure you is that security organisations are very very much on top of this matter.”
When asked whether the issue of the ultimatum came up for discussion during the FEC meeting, the minister said it did not come up.
The National President, AYCF, Yerima Shettima, had handed down the ultimatum at a press conference in Kaduna on Tuesday.
“We are also telling our brothers (northerners) out there in the South-East to get prepared to come back home,” Shettima had said.
The ultimatum followed a successful sit-at-home order enforced by the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra on May 30, 2017, which the five South-East states complied with.
The ultimatum was handed down at a well-attended press conference held at the Arewa House, Kaduna, on Tuesday.
It was gathered, the text of the press conference was signed by Nastura Ashir Sharif (Arewa Citizens Action for Change); Alhaji Shettima Yerima (Arewa Youth Consultative Forum); Aminu Adam (Arewa Youth Development Foundation); Alfred Solomon, (Arewa Students Forum); Abdul-Azeez Suleiman (Northern Emancipation Network), as well as Joshua Viashman, who signed on behalf of the Northern Youth Vanguard.
