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 backing 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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