Sit-at-home: Protect Northerners, Arewa group tells South-East Govs

As the IPOB Sit-at-home violence escalates, the Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) has asked governors of South-Eastern states to take measures to protect the lives and property of Northerners living in South-Eastern communities.

This was contained in a statement issued by the AYCF’s President, Yerima Shettima, and made available to journalists in Kaduna on Thursday.

The statement condemned the “mindless, unrelenting violent disturbances” caused by certain South-East interest groups in the form of the agitation for a separate state of Biafra.

Aware that the perpetrators of violence relentlessly pursuing this agenda of destruction and collective mayhem, fervently hope it will engulf the entire country and bring about mass killings and suffering of innocent people, the AYCF is calling for guaranteed protection of the lives and properties of Northerners in the entire southeast.

We are worried that often the mindless violence and extremist terrorist actions perpetrated by IPOB and its followers in the South-East resort to the long-practiced tactics of attacks against northerners and against agents and symbols of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

We are therefore compelled to demand from the South-East governors’ action to ensure an environment in which the Northerner is safe and secure wherever he chooses to live and work in the Southeast just as the North is ready to support other Nigerians to benefit from our tolerance and accommodation if they show appropriate respect for the context of their livelihoods.

It is in our culture to welcome and live with outsiders, and we must never be tired of reminding other Nigerians that the laws of the land demand that every Nigerian lives and earns his legitimate living in any part of Nigeria without discrimination or molestation, Shettima said.

He did, however, say that the North is well aware that, unlike the previous set of governors of South-Eastern states, the current state administrations are demonstrating some level of commitment to resisting the IPOB’s terrorist tactics.

We also commend the renewed gallantry of our troops under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to checkmate the maneuvers of all terror outfits in the country, he said.