The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that given what the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari inherited, restructuring could not have been its priority.
\nThe minister stated this, yesterday, when he featured on \u201cFocus Nigeria\u201d a current affairs programme of African Independent Television anchored by Gbenga Aruleba.
\nThe minister assured all Nigerians to go about their lawful businesses and disregard any threat from any quarters.
\nHe said the government would not be found wanting in the discharge of its primary responsibility of protecting lives and property of all Nigerians wherever they reside.
\nHe added that government would deal decisively with anyone or group that disturb the peace of the nation and constitute a threat to any one or group.
\nMeanwhile, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, has ordered the Commissioner of Police (CP) in Kaduna State to investigate and arrest members of the Coalition of Northern Youth (CNY), who signed and issued the ultimatum to Ndigbo living in the North to vacate the region in three months or face physical attacks.
\nThe Coalition of Northern Youth on June 6, at a news conference in Kaduna, gave a three-month ultimatum to South Easterners living in the North to leave.
\nIt had also ordered Northerners living in the South Eastern part of the country to return to the North.
\nThe group attributed the ultimatum to the constant agitation by the Igbo ethnic group to have their own independent country.
\nIdris gave the order at a meeting with commissioners of police and other high ranking officers, yesterday, in Abuja.
\nHe warned that no individual or group of persons had the right to ask any individual to leave his or her place of residence in any part of the country.
\nIdris ordered other state commissioners of police in the North and Assistant Inspectors -General of Police in the various zonal commands to do same.
\nHe said \u201cas Commissioners of Police and Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, we have the responsibility to stop this group of persons from carrying out their threats.
\n\u201cI want us to be at alert to ensure that such persons or group were stopped at all cost from carrying out their threats.
\n\u201cNo individual has the authority to stop anybody from looking for his daily bread\u201d.
\nHe explained that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to live in any part of the country he or she chooses.
\nReacting, Minister of Interior, Lt Gen Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau (rtd), warned that the Federal Government would deal ruthlessly with anyone trying to destabilise the polity and incite disintegration of the country.
\nThe minister, who lamented the spurious and unwarranted calls for separation, called on all well-meaning Nigerians \u201cto go about their normal activities as government would bring to bear the full weight of the law on any individual or group violating the rights of citizens of the country.\u201d
\nDambazau assured that citizens were free to go about their normal businesses and would not be harassed or deterred by any group or persons.
\nDambazau advised the \u201cvarious ethnic groups to desist from flaming the embers of hate, animosity, discord and disharmony and adhere strictly to the teachings of good values of religions and cultures that encourages good neighbourliness, national unity and Integration, and love for one another.\u201d
\nHe also advised youth to avoid being instrument of violence, animosity and disharmony and that they should rather focus their attention and energies on national unity, integration and cohesion.
\nHowever, the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, has ordered the immediate arrest and prosecution of those behind the call for Igbos to quit the North, warning that government would not tolerate anyone who incites citizens to violence, thereby threatening the peace and unity of the country.
\nThe governor urged the police to investigate, arrest and prosecute the signatories to the communique issued at the end of the coalition of northern youth news conference.
\nSimilarly, leading pan-Northern group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), have\u00a0 condemned the\u00a0 ultimatum on Igbos, and warned the northern youth to retrace their steps, forthwith.
\nIt would be recalled that spokesman of the youth coalition, AbdulAziz Suleiman, who read the \u2018Kaduna Declaration\u2019 to newsmen, last Tuesday, called for mobilization \u201cfor sustained, coordinated campaigns at state Government Houses, state Houses of Assembly, Local Government Council Secretariats and Traditional Palaces to mount pressure for steps to be taken to ensure enforcement of the directives.
\n\u201cThe North hereby openly calls on the authorities and other national and international stakeholders to acknowledge this declaration by taking steps to facilitate the final dissolution of this hopeless union that has never been convenient to any of the parties.
\n\u201cFrom today, June 6, 2017, when this proclamation is signed, the North, a critical player in the Nigerian project, hereby declares that it will no longer be disposed to coexisting with the Igbos and shall take definite steps to end the partnership by pulling out of the current federal arrangement,\u201d he said.
\nBut in a reaction to the condemnation of its call on Igbos to quit the North, the youth group, restated their position, clarifying that it was informed by recent actions of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), which violated the rights of northerners in the South-East.
\nAlso reacting, the House of Representatives, yesterday, condemned the ultimatum by Coalition of Arewa Youth to Igbos to leave the Northern region of the country.
\nConsequently, the house urged security agencies to be on the alert to forestall any breakdown of law and order that may arise as a result of the threat.
\nThe resolution was sequel to the adoption of a motion under matter of urgent public importance by Rep. Oghene Egoh (Lagos-PDP).
\nMoving the motion, Egoh condemned the relocation threat issued by the 16 Northern youth groups and the stand of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on the matter.
\nThe lawmaker stressed the need for the Federal Government to urgently intervene in order to avert a national crisis.
\n\u201cAs part of the campaign by the IPOB for the actualisation of Biafra Republic, Biafra agitators shut down major towns in the South-East on May 30, 2017.
\n\u201cIt is disturbing that 16 Northern youth groups on June 6, 2017, gave Igbos residing in their states up to October 1, 2017 to vacate the region.
\n\u201cIn its reaction, the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said it received with gladness the \u2018quit notice\u2019, and urged the Igbos to return home immediately.
\n\u201cThe two calls created alarming twist which is ominous and dangerous for the good health of Nigerians.
\n\u201cThis motion is not interested in the merit or demerit of Biafra nor is it interested in apportioning blame on those who made the two unpatriotic calls.
\n\u201cRather, this is only concern for the nation\u2019s leaders to immediately intervene to stop these agitations from resulting in violence that may consume the entire nation,\u2019\u2019 Egoh said.
\nHe also urged the National Assembly and the Presidency to initiate dialogue with the two groups to avoid damage to the nation.
\n\u201cWhile people have the right to their views and decisions about lives, the National Assembly must rise to the occasion we find ourselves and put an end to the confusion that is brewing.
\n\u201cThis must be done by appealing to both parties to withdraw their demands to avoid loss of lives, especially that of innocent children, women and others who are not part of the problem,\u2019\u2019 Egoh warned.
\nWithout debate on the motion, the House urged the Arewa youth and their Biafra counterpart to rescind their decisions.
\nThe legislators called on the Federal Government to urgently wade into the crisis in order to avoid loss of lives and properties.
\nThe National Human Rights Commission and the Committee for the Defence on Human Rights, yesterday, called on the various security agencies to bring to justice the northern youths who asked Igbo to quit the North before October 1, 2017.
\nThe NHRC and CDHR said in separate statements that the ultimatum was a clear violation of the fundamental human rights of every Nigerian to reside, acquire and own immovable properties in any part of the country, as guaranteed under Section 43 of the Constitution.
\nThe statement read, \u201cThe alleged quit notice, to say the least, is not only provocative and a serious threat to national peace and security, but a clear violation of the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians to reside, acquire and own immovable properties in any part of the country as guaranteed under Section 43 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)s.\u201d
\nYakasai said this while reacting to the ultimatum given to the Igbos by some Northern youth.
\nHe said, \u201cthe quit notice to Igbos by some people in the north and the purported denial of grazing right to Fulani herders in the south are against human rights provisions of the Nigerian constitution, which guaranteed freedom of movement to all Nigerians.\u201d
\nHe also described the denial of Fulani herders from grazing their animals as an infringement on the constitution.
\nHe said, \u201cI read the joint position paper by the Arewa Citizens Action for change. First of all, I believe there is only a Nigerian citizenship, as long as we have a Nigeria. It is a good beginning, but I think we needed a deeper and more serious extermination of our situation, which I believe is overdue.
\n\u201cIt does not matter whether Nigeria will continue as a single political entity or not. We in the north need to have a kind of master plan for our future and the future of our people. It is wrong for us to be living in the way we are without any plan for our development for the present and for our future.\u201d
\nHe, therefore, opined that a meeting should be held for a call for action and with people from different disciplines coming together to discuss how to uplift the society.
\nBut reacting to government and other stakeholders\u2019 condemnation of its call on Igbos to vacate the North, the coalition of Northern youth groups, yesterday, reiterated that it\u2019s call for Igbo to leave northern Nigeria was not a call to violence but to allow Igbo achieve their ambition of having the country.
\nIn a statement issued, yesterday, in Kaduna, and signed by Abdulazeez Suleiman, spokesman of the group carpeted governors Nasir el-Rufai and Kashim Shettima of Kaduna and Borno states, respectively, on their stand against them, saying that the governors were driven by their ambitions to be vice president.
\nHe said the group was \u201cnauseated\u201d by the comments attributed to El-Rufai and Shettima, describing them as \u201cdisgruntled northern political power mongers\u201d.
\nPart of their statement reads: \u201cWe restate that we have never called anybody to violence and that people should discountenance the elements of fear and threat introduced by the distortions of merchants of mischief.
\n\u201cWe wholeheartedly endorse the moves made variously by our leaders to allay those fears and urge people to be peaceful and law-abiding while at the same time resolutely insisting on having the right thing done by allowing the Igbo to have and move to their dream country in accordance with the universal fundamental right to self-determination.
\n\u201cWe restate our determination and commitment to ensuring that the North will never partake in any contrived arrangement that would still have the Biafran Igbo as a component.
\n\u201cWe reiterate our call on Nigerian authorities and recognized international bodies such as the ECOWAS, AU and UN to hasten the initiation of the process for the final actualization of the Biafran nation and with it the excision of the Igbo out of the present federation\u201d.
\nSuleiman claimed that despite the \u201cdistortion\u201d of their earlier statement, the feedback they got was that their message resonated with \u201cpeace-loving Nigerians who have been tormented and menaced by the irredentist proclivities of the Igbos and are overwhelmingly desirous to put an end to it\u201d.
\nHe said the group \u201care particularly disappointed by the treacherous positions assumed by Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai and Kashim Shettima, who in pursuit of their blind ambition for the vice presidency, chose to side with the secessionist Igbos against the interest of peace-loving Nigerians. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that given what the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari inherited, restructuring could not have been its priority. The minister stated this, yesterday, when he featured on \u201cFocus Nigeria\u201d a current affairs programme of African Independent Television anchored by Gbenga Aruleba. The minister assured all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/153401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}