The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has lambasted governors Nyesom Wike and Okezie Ikpeazu of Rivers and Abia states respectively for allowing attacks on Northerners and destruction of their businesses and assets in their domains.
Speaking in a statement signed by its National President, Yerima Shettima, after its emergency meeting in Kaduna, AYCF argued that unless the Southern governors assume that Northerners’ lives don’t matter’, they have a duty to compensate the families of those killed in their states for no fault of theirs.
According to the group, “The latest round of wanton attack on Northerners and destruction of their businesses, including multimillion naira worth of trucks loaded with goods and the razing of markets where Northerners are majority, betrays either a deliberate provocation or possibly a planned ethnic cleansing agenda.
“We at the AYCF wish to reiterate that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees the free movement and interactions amongst the citizenry, without let or hindrance.
Consequently, we demand that the governors of the states where innocent Northern traders and businessmen were attacked for no reason should do the needful.
“Nigeria has passed that stage where organized attack on any ethnic group will definitely be resisted by men and women of conscience. Civil societies need to rise to the occasion by drawing the attention of all relevant authorities and stakeholders to this brazen attack on innocent Northerners in Abia and Port Harcourt.
“On our part, if nothing is done to address this wanton killings and destruction of Northerners businesses and assets in Abia and Port Harcourt, we shall resort to all legal and Constitutional processes to ensure that the law takes its full course.
“We wish to also seize this opportunity to remind these governors that Northerners lives matter and their systematic intimidation and attacks are uncivilised, provocative and totally unacceptable.”
