A political and socio-cultural association formed by youths in Northern Nigeria, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), has urged South East governors to take urgent steps to “end the killing of innocent Northerners or face the legal consequences of their inaction”, SaharaReporters reports.
Rising from its emergency meeting in Kaduna, the AYCF, in a media statement signed by its National President, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, described the killing of northerners working or trading in the South East at the slightest opportunity as a ‘totally unacceptable’ act of undue provocation, said SaharaReporters.
The group said it was expecting Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State to use his exposure in governance and management to tackle the killings, but he seemed to have been a disappointment.
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“The fact that the governors of the Southeast are the Chief Security Officers of their states but do nothing to stop the unprovoked killing of Northerners presupposes an ethnic cleansing agenda and we condemn it, in whatever guise – IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) attack or ESN (Eastern Security Network),” the statement noted.
The AYCF, in the statement, said the recent killing of a mother and her baby as well as a Christian aircraft engineer of Northern extraction means the lives of their people no longer have value in the Southeast, “where IPOB, ESN and so-called unknown gunmen are doing as they please as non-state actors, unhindered”.
“Silence of these governors, despite the brutal attacks on our sons and daughters in the Southeast, must be stopped now and we want to sound our note of warning, that no Nigerian has the monopoly of violence and that Northerners’ respect for the rule of law should never be taken as a weakness,” the AYCF said.