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Chairman of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Ambassador Shettima Yarima
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The Chairman of
Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Ambassador Shettima Yarima, has said the
quit notice given to Igbo in the northern states stands, pending the outcome of
their current consultations across board.
“Our
stand on Biafra still stands. But when the period expires, we are not going to
expel them by force. We don’t have the constitutional power to do that. So
whoever does not believe in Nigeria can leave at his will peacefully. We are
not using any force to eject them from the North,” he said.
Yarima
spoke at a town hall meeting organised by a coalition of northern youths at
Ni’imah Guest Palace Hotel, Kano under the leadership of Nastura Ashir Sharif.
In
his keynote address, Sharif said that apart from the quit notice, they had also
written to the United Nations on the violent activities of the leader of the
Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, urging them to declare him a
terrorist and his agitation illegal.
According
to him, the Arewa youths are still expecting a response from the UN which would
guide their next move. “That is why we say our quit notice still stands and our
resolve that anybody who doesn’t want to stay in Nigeria should vacate our
region still stands, but we are not going to use force to actualize that. We
will do it through peaceful means, this is because of the fact that one cannot
be living with us and talking Biafra,” Sharif stated.
He
said it was sad that people focused more on the quit notice issued by the
northern youths rather than on a “presented recorded video evidence where
Nnamdi Kanu called for genocide like what happened in Rwanda.”
Sharif
revealed that “After our Kaduna Declaration, when we issued a quit notice to
all Igbo residing in the North to leave the region on or before 1st October,
2017, we received various calls from people both within and outside the country
telling us to review our stand and come up with other demands or issues
affecting the North.”
He
said they were advised to go beyond Biafra issue and come up with strategies to
tackle issues bothering on economy, unemployment, security, Almajiri and drug
abuse as they affect the North.
“We
are indeed heeding the calls, that is why we are here in Kano holding a Town
Hall meeting in line with the advice. We would organise similar meetings in
North East and North Central after which we will come up with our final stand
regarding this issue,” he said.
Prof.
Aliyu Jibia, who is the chairman of the Arewa Summit Development Initiative, in
his submission, lamented the issue of Almajiri, urging the people to rise
against the menace by proffering lasting solution to it.
He
revealed that on the 1st of October, the group would hold a one- million-man
march to sensitize the people on the menace of Almajiri that has been affecting
the region for many years.
Source: - Abba Anwar & Ogun Mattew | The Guardian
| August 04, 2017.
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