AREWA warns Southeast governors to “end the killing of innocent Northerners in region

Bisi ABASS

The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has warned governors in the Southeast to take urgent steps to “end the killing of innocent Northerners or face the legal consequences of their inaction”.

In a statement by its National President, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, AYCF said that the killing of Northerners in the Southeast presupposes an ethnic cleansing agenda.

Recall that militants of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Sunday killed a woman, her four children and six other Northerners at Isulo, Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State.

However, rising from an emergency meeting in Kaduna, the AYCF said the murder of Northerners working or trading in the Southeast at the slightest opportunity was totally unacceptable act of undue provocation.

The group said it was expecting Governor Soludo of Anambra to use his exposure in governance and management to tackle the killings, but he seemed to have been a ‘disappointment’.

He said, “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 attack or ESN.

“The killing of a mother and the baby she cuddled as well as the Christian Aircraft Engineer of Northern extraction means the life of our own people is no longer valued 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.”