- Order Northerners in Souh-East to Return
Following the Biafran agitation for a republic which has continued to create palpable tension in the country, it appears another dust has settled on the nation, as Igbos residing in the North have been given three months ultimatum to leave the northern region.
The New Diplomat learnt several groups under the aegis of Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY), which rose from a joint meeting in Kaduna, yesterday, also ordered northerners in the South-East region to immediately start returning to their various states.
The coalition which included the Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum, Northern Emancipation Network, Northern Youth Vanguard, Northern Youths Stakeholders Forum, the North-East Assembly among others, said the declaration was necessitated by the sit-at-home ordered by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which shut down social and economic activities in major cities and towns in the South East on May 30.
Mallam Abdulazeez Suleiman who read the statement tagged “Kaduna Declaration” at the popular Arewa House Kaduna said the North was tired of the 1914 Amalgamation that joined the Southern and Northern protectorate that birthed Nigeria.
“We are hereby placing the Nigerian authorities and the entire nation on notice, that as from the 1st October, 2017, we shall commence the implementation of visible actions to prove to the whole world that we are no longer part of any federal union that should do with the Igbos.
“From that date, effective, peaceful and safe mop-up of all the remnants of the stubborn Igbos that neglect to heed this quit notice shall commence to finally eject them from every part of the North.
“And finally, all authorities, individuals or groups are hereby advised against attempting to undermine this declaration by insisting on this union with the Igbos who have thus far proved to be an unnecessary baggage carried too far and for too long.”
The CNY said all northern civil society and pressure groups had been mandated to mobilise for sustained and coordinated campaigns at their respective states.
According to the statement: “The persistence for the actualisation of Biafra by the unruly Igbo of South-Eastern Nigeria has lately assumed another alarming twist which involved the forceful lockdown of activities and denial of other people’s right to free movement in the South-East by the rebel Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its overt and covert sponsors.
“This latest action and similar confrontational conducts which amount to a brutal encroachment on the rights of those termed as non-indigenous people residing and doing lawful businesses in those areas illegally demarcated and defined as Biafra by the Igbo, are downright unacceptable and shall no longer be tolerated.”
The statement read further: “The Igbo people of the South-East, without remorse for the carnage they wrought on the nation in the 1960s, are today boldly reliving those sinister intentions connoted by the Biafran agitation that led to the very first bloody insurrection in Nigeria’s history.
“Emboldened by the apparent indifference of the Nigerian authorities, the Igbo secessionist tendency is widening in scope and action at every stage, with adverse effects on the law-abiding people of other regions residing in or passing through the East, while the Igbo leaders and elders by their utterances and direct action or inaction appear to support and encourage it.
“This is happening irrespective of the undisputable fact that Igbos have done and are doing more damage to our collective nationhood than any other ethnic group; being responsible for the first violent interference with democracy in Nigeria resulting in a prolonged counter-productive chain of military dictatorship.
“It is on record that since the inception of the current democratic dispensation, the Igbos have shown and maintained open contempt and resentment for the collective decision expressed by majority of Nigerians at various stages via generally acceptable democratic processes.
“While these provocative acts of aggression persist and grow in dimension with each new move, leaders of the North whose people are at the receiving end of the threats, appear helplessly unperturbed.
“Without pursuing a resolute action-plan, these northern leaders have adopted and have been dragging its people into a pitifully pacifist position in order to sustain an elusive national cohesion that has long been ridiculed by the Igbos.
“From today, June 6, 2017, when this proclamation is signed, the North, a critical player in the Nigerian project, hereby declares that it will no longer be disposed to coexisting with the Igbos and shall take definite steps to end the partnership by pulling out of the current federal arrangement,” the statement concluded.
