An Igbo group known as Igbo Renaissance Agenda, IRA, has replied the Arewa Youth Assembly, who, on Friday, July 28, 2017 called on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to arrest the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, for what it termed “threat to national security”.
However, in a press statement signed by Jude Ndukwe and Amaka Ekwo, protem coordinator and protem secretary of Igbo Renaissance Agenda, e-mailed to The Trent on Monday, July 31, 2017, the group chided the Arewa youths for such a “hypocritical and callous” call.
The group went further to state that rather than be “obsessed” with Nnamdi Kanu, the Arewa group should “face the cankerworm and work assiduously to tackle the menace of terrorism, abject poverty, illiteracy, disease, laziness (a vice that makes them threaten to acquire properties of Igbo by seizure) etc that ravage their region”.
The IRA also claimed that the ultimate target of the Arewa youths is the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo: “They are looking for ways of pushing Osinbajo into making monumental errors that are capable of imploding the nation so that they would turn around to say he lacks the capacity to lead thereby using that alibi to create chaos that could see him ousted and have any of their kinsmen replace him, they stated.
Below is the full text of the statement from IRA:
Following the call last week by the Arewa Youth Assembly to the Acting President to arrest the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, for what they termed “threats to national security” arising from his movements in parts of his country, we, the Igbo Renaissance Agenda, IRA, wish to state that such calls are not only hypocritical and callous but also prove that the real enemies of Nigeria are the several Arewa groups being used to achieve some sinister agenda by their elders.
We are alarmed that while the dreaded Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen terrorists designated as the most dangerous and fourth most dangerous terrorist groups in the world respectively are having a field day killing innocent Nigerians almost on a daily basis especially the latest one in Maiduguri where oil explorers, university lecturers, staff of NNPC and our security agents were mowed down in cold blood, some still missing while some others were kidnapped, the concern of Arewa groups is an Nnamdi Kanu who is non-violent, never kidnapped anyone, nor requested for ransom from anybody unlike terrorist groups from Arewa’s enclave.
While the Arewa controlled military and other security forces keep releasing dangerous terrorists into the society in the name of de-radicalisation, they also empower them by giving them huge sums of money in exchange for kidnap victims thereby compromising the general safety and well being of law abiding Nigerians.
The non-prosecution of a good number of these criminals and their funding by Arewa-led government agencies in the name of ransom payment have the unimaginable propensity to embolden the them to carry out the kind of brazen attacks they did in Maiduguri and other places in recent days. This should be the concern of any reasonable Arewa group.
Rather than face the cankerworm and work assiduously to tackle the menace of terrorism, abject poverty, illiteracy, disease, laziness (a vice that makes them threaten to acquire properties of Igbo by seizure) etc that ravage their region, they are so obsessed with the legendary Nnamdi Kanu who has always conducted himself peacefully everywhere he goes.
We know the main objectives of the Arewa youths and their elders. We know that their other target is Osinbajo. They are looking for ways of pushing Osinbajo into making monumental errors that are capable of imploding the nation so that they would turn around to say he lacks the capacity to lead thereby using that alibi to create chaos that could see him ousted and have any of their kinsmen replace him.
This is why they stated in their vexatious release that “This level of lawlessness has left us with no option than to doubt the ability of our Acting President to successfully preside over the affairs of our country”. We know where they are going but we shall stop them in their tracks.
They are trying to push Osinbajo into the kind of stark indiscretion deployed by Buhari in mishandling the agitations all over the country today. The Acting President surely would not fall for such cheap trap.
Our message to the Arewa youths and their elderly sponsors is simple: we dare anyone to touch Nnamdi Kanu and see if the nation would survive it even a minute longer.
The days of lording it over Nigerians and cowing the rest of the country into silence are long over. It is a new dawn and the earlier the misguided Arewa youths and their elders know this, the better for all of us!
