Ayodele Fayose, the governor of Ekiti State, has condemned the ultimatum given by some Northern youths to the Igbos living in the North to leave the region, saying that “such reckless pronouncement could only come from a group of irresponsible and jobless youths”.
In an e-mailed statement to The Trent on Sunday, June 11, 2017, Lere Olayinka, a spokesperson for the governor said that he chided the Northern youths for making such pronouncement at a time Nigerians needed to join hands together for the development of the nation.
Governor Fayose, who also condemned the Northern elders who openly endorsed the action of the youths, appealed to the Igbo people of the Southeast to remain calm even in the face of provocation, noting that “Nigeria is greater than any set of people.”
The governor, who lamented that Nigeria was now more divided than ever before, said; “Rather than giving open support to the youths, the northern elders should have supported the Northern States governors in condemning the youths and calling for their arrest.”
He chided the All Progressives Congress (APC) led federal government on its inability to foster unity among Nigerians, citing the handling of the Fulani herdsmen menace as a pointer to the federal government’s nonchalant attitude to serious national issues bordering on the oneness of the country.
“I have said it times without number that Nigeria is now more divided than ever in the last two years.
“The APC led administration has allowed this country to fall apart. Have you ever seen a country where the president will openly categorize its citizens’ access to government patronage into 97 percent of those who voted for him and and five percent of those who didn’t?
“It is for unguarded utterances and actions like these that our unity as a country is no longer like before”, Fayose submitted.
He advised the President and his henchmen to live up to expectations and ensure a more united Nigeria in order to avoid an embattled future for the unborn children.
Fayose said, “we must go back and chart a way forward. We must talk on how we want to live together. Nigeria is drifting and it is not in our interest.”
Leave The North By October 1 – Arewa Groups Warn Igbos
A coalition of prominent groups in Northern Nigeria on Tuesday, June 6, 2017 issued an ultimatum to Igbos living in the north to return home by October 1, 2017 or else they will face a situation similar to the pre-civil war pogroms visited on their kin in the 1960s.
The order was contained in an error-ridden statement, obtained by The Trent, issued after a meeting in Kaduna State. The groups, Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum, and the Northern Emancipation Network, asked the Igbo residing in the region to “start making plans to leave.”
The chilling statement condemned the renewed call for the independent republic of Biafra and also expressed disdain for the Igbos and their culture saying that “the Igbo people of the South-East, not repentant of the carnage it wrought on the nation in 1966, is today boldly reliving those sinister intentions connoted by the Biafran agitation that led to the very first bloody insurrection in Nigeria’s history”.
In 1966, the Igbos were the victims of the largest genocide in Nigeria’s history with over 100,000 of them killed in Northern Nigeria by northern mobs. This pogrom led to the declaration of the Republic of Biafra which led to the Nigerian civil war in which over 3 million Igbos died.
The northern groups’ threat to Igbos is now widely referred to as the Kaduna Declaration and has been widely condemned by public officials and political groups. However, it has also received wide support from northern elements like Professor Abdullahi.
