Until early last week when Acting President Yemi Osinbajo waded in and began to hold conciliatory meetings with leaders of some sections of the country, Nigerians were getting worried over the Federal Government’s ominous silence as quit threats and hate messages were freely issued and received from one end of the country to the other, taking the country once again to the brink of disintegration.
Osinbajo held a meeting with foremost leaders of Northern extraction at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, where he issued a stern warning that dire consequences await anyone who makes hate speeches capable of disrupting the peace of the country.
”I want to ensure that there is no doubt at all that it is the resolve of the government that none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or violence because when we make these kinds of pronouncements and do things that can cause violence or destruction of lives and property, we are no longer in control,” Osinbajo said.
“Those who make those speeches are no longer in control,” he said.
At the meeting attended by Senate President Bukola Saraki, House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, National Security Adviser Babagana Mongunu, Chief of Defence Staff Gabriel Olonishakin, Ibrahim Comassie, chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum and former Inspector General of Police, Aliyu Wammako, former governor of Sokoto State, Pauline Tallen, former deputy governor of Plateau State, Sam Ndah-Isaiah, publisher of Leadership Newspaper, Wantaregh Paul Unongo, deputy leader, Northern Elders Forum, Martins Luther Agwai, former Chief of Defence Staff, and Ango Abdullahi, a professor and former vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Osinbajo acknowledged that in the course of living together, misunderstandings and frustration were inevitable, but noted that “we can only begin to talk about any part of anything if we are together in peace”.
He likened the emerging hate speeches from across the regions to stones thrown into the market which he said were likely to hit targets not intended.
“I need us to be fully conscious of that and the Nigerian people must be made to be fully conscious of that so that we do not create a crisis that is not intended. These days, wars do not end, and I am sure that those who have seen or experienced war in any shape or form will not wish it on their worst enemies,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Acting President met with South-East leaders at the State House Conference Centre, urging them to speak out against hate speeches capable of destabilising the country.
“It is in my view the role and responsibility of those privileged in society to be leaders to chart a progressive and lofty course for the ordinary people,” he said.
“As leaders, we carry the burden to secure the peace, progress and prosperity of our people, and that is why our voices ought to be heard and heard loud and clear at moments like this in the defence and articulation of what is truly beneficial to the nation and the people, and what is right and patriotic,” he said.
Osinbajo said the recent “loud and sometimes hostile” agitations by youths in the South-East calling for secession of the region from Nigeria were uncalled for, just as he condemned the equally unreasonable “tit-for-tat” by a group of youths from the North who issued an ultimatum asking all South-Easterners living in the North to leave by October 1 this year.
He reiterated the Federal Government’s resolve to deal decisively with any troublemaker who threatens the peaceful coexistence of Nigeria.
In attendance at the meeting were Senate President Saraki, House Speaker Dogara, the five governors of the South-East, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, former Senate President Ken Nnamani, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, former Anambra State Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Catholic Bishop of Nsukka, Igwebike Onah, Senator Joy Emordi, Viola Onwuliri, former minister of state for foreign affairs, Abba Kyari, chief of staff to the president, the NSA, chief of defence staff, service chiefs, the Inspector General of Police, and some ministers.
The genesis
On June 6, a coalition of Northern youth groups issued a quit notice to all Igbo living in the region and gave them until October 1, 2017 to vacate the North.
The groups include Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum, and Northern Emancipation Network.
In the statement which is now tagged the ‘Kaduna Declaration’, the youth groups also asked Northerners in the South-East to leave the area, warning that as from October 1 they would commence “peaceful and safe mop-up of all the remnants of the stubborn Igbos that neglect to heed this quit notice” to “finally eject them from every part of the North”.
They cited as reason for their decision the pro-Biafran activities of some Igbo, centred around the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), especially the May 30 sit-at-home protest observed in all the states of the South-East, saying these actions and similar confrontational conducts “amount to a brutal encroachment on the rights of those termed as non-indigenous people residing and doing lawful businesses in those areas illegally demarcated and defined as Biafra by the Igbo”.
The quit notice quickly generated reactions and counter-reactions, earning condemnation from many quarters and commendation from a few others. While the Northern Governors’ Forum disowned the youth groups, the Northern Elders’ Forum expressed support for the quit order and railed the NGF for disowning the groups.
Armageddon unleashed
Following the government’s apparent silence, the Nigerian polity became heated overnight. Taking a cue from the North, other parts of the country began to issue threats.
On June 7, a group of purported South-West youths codenamed the Youths of Oduduwa Republic came up with ‘The Lagos Declaration’ in which they made it abundantly clear that they “shall no longer tolerate the madness of the Igbo region intimidating, harassing and defrauding the Yoruba nation with their empty calls for Biafra”.
“As from today, the 7th day of June 2017, any mention of Biafra again on our soil will automatically, without recourse to any other warning, earn the Igbos an eviction notice from all of the six states that form Oduduwa Republic namely, for the avoidance of doubts, Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ondo and Ekiti. We shall within three months of such act of agitation for Biafra do everything possible to chase the Igbos out of our land so we all can leave in peace and regain our dignity as human race,” the group said.
Similarly, the Middle Belt Youth Council issued a statement asking that the Arewa youths that issued the quit notice to Igbo and their sponsors be arrested and charged for treason. It distanced the Middle Belt from the quit notice and said that if indeed Igbo were evicted from Arewa, the Middle Belt would welcome them.
On its part, the apex Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, called on all Southerners resident in the North to start returning home, while IPOB asked the Igbo and other Southerners resident in the North to start packing to leave the region, saying the stance of the Northern groups’ coalition had vindicated its position. The Yoruba Unity Forum called the quit notice outrageous, provocative and treasonable.
Some South-South leaders also joined the fray, saying the Northern groups’ position indicated that a time-bomb was ticking that may lead to the disintegration of Nigeria.
Some political observers, however, said the Southerners in the North should ignore the “empty threats” of the Arewa youths. But a historian who does not want his name in print insisted that anyone telling the Igbo or other Southerners to ignore the Arewa youths’ threat is a bloodsucking vampire.
“It is only a tree that will keep standing after it has been told that it is about to be killed. We all must take the Arewa youths’ threat very seriously. Ohanaeze and other Igbo sociocultural groups should do what Afenifere has done,” he said.
“My candid advise to my Igbo brothers and sisters in the North is that they should heed the warning by Arewa youths. If we speak grammar from Lagos to Sokoto, a threat has been issued, no pretence about it. When Hausa people speak, it has been agreed, so we don’t make the same mistake twice,” he said.
Consultations to continue this week
On Thursday, Osinbajo met behind closed-doors with the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, at the Presidential Villa. Though there was as yet no official communication from the Presidency to explain the visit at press time, it was gathered that the visit may not be unconnected with the ongoing consultations of prominent Nigerians on the state of the nation.
The Acting President is expected to subsequently meet with traditional rulers from the South-East and the North, governors of the 36 states, and round off with a final meeting with all stakeholders on June 22.
Right step in the right direction
Commendations have trailed these consultations initiated by Osinbajo. Pundits say it is a right step in the right direction, urging the Acting President to carry it through to a conclusive end.
One political observer, however, said these agitations point to an urgent need to restructure the country as the current structure is clearly not working.
CHUKS OLUIGBO & MABEL DIMMA
