A pro-democracy and non-governmental organization, Human Rights
Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has alleged that the group who ordered
Igbos to vacate the North in three months, Coalition of Northern Youths, CNY,
has the support of some top officials from the Presidency.
Disclosing this
in a statement, the pro-democracy group claimed that the current “presidency is
dominated mostly by known former officials of the AREWA CONSULTANTIVE ASSEMBLY
whose youth wing made the threat” to force Igbo residing in the North out and
to “confiscate their lawfully acquired housing/business assets.”
In the
statement jointly by the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the
National media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA alleged that “there
are evidence of high powered backing” of these Northern Youth from the “top
most echelons of the current presidency.”
The group noted
that the venue of the press conference which the threat was issued – being
AREWA HOUSE in Kaduna is known as the “symbolic political cave of core
Northerners and their Political hawks.”
Consequently,
HURIWA urged the international community to hold President Muhammadu Buhari
responsible should the Northern youths make good their threats to sack Igbo
from the North.
HURIWA said the
failure of Buhari to appoint a South Easterner as one of the Service Chiefs and
a member of the National Defence Council is what has emboldened the sponsored
Northern Youth to fearlessly and publicly threaten genocide against the Igbo
should they fail to quit Northern Nigeria by October 31st 2017.
The
pro-Democracy group also disclosed that it has written to major embassies in
Nigeria, calling the attention of the global community to the well-orchestrated
plot backed by what it termed “political hawks in the North to wage another
campaign of genocide against the Igbo residing peacefully in Northern Nigeria.”
The statement
reads, “For the past two years, we have waged relentless advocacy campaigns
urging the Buhanri’s government to direct top commanders of the Armed forces to
stop his kinsmen the armed Fulani paternalists to stop killing farmers all over
the country but the military under the direct command and control of the
president has rather gone after cattle rustlers allowing armed Fulani renegades
to freely roam all over the country maiming, killing farmers and destroying
communities.
“Now that these Arewa Youth have unleashed a wave of hate filled
threats against the Igbo race, it is shocking that 24 hours after, not one of
those boys have been picked up by the military and the police. Are the security
forces waiting until they have inflicted pains and destroyed legally earned
assets of the peaceful Igbo people living in the North before they act belated?
“May we use
this medium to once more ask that president Buhari respects the constitutional
principle of Federal character and appoint a Military officer of South East
extraction as one of the service chiefs to guarantee the over 70 million Igbo
people of their safety and security.”
HURIWA cited
section 14(3) of the constitution which reads, “The composition of the
Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its
affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal
character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to
command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance
of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional group in
that Government or in any of its agencies.”
The group said
a situation where all the key Defence chiefs and the National Security Adviser
to the President, all heads of security affiliated agencies and paramilitary
including department of state services (DSS), Nigeria police force are
predominantly from the North, does not augur well for national tranquility and
fairness even as the group linked the security breaches by armed Fulani
terrorists and now the threat to unleash violence on Igbo in the North to the
skewed appointments of these key officers from one region and one faith group.
Faulting the
hate speech from the Northern youth, HURIWA said there was nothing untoward in
the peaceful agitation for self-determination by the Indigenous people of
Biafra (IPOB) provided they are going about their activities lawfully and moreover
the international covenant on civil and political Rights recognizes right to
self-determination for indigenous groups.
The group
charged security forces to arrest those AREWA youth threatening violence and
prosecute them, else the Igbo should defend themselves because the Rights to
freedom of movement and Right to life are constitutional imperatives.
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