NATIONAL chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Odigie Oyegun has declared that agents of destabilization bent on balkanizing the country were on the loose while President Muhammadu Buhari was away in the United Kingdom attending to his health challenge.
Oyegun made the remarks on Monday while speaking with journalists, shortly after inaugurating a seven man reconciliation committee to resolve the crisis rocking the Kogi state chapter of the party.
Tribune Online checks revealed that a coalition of Northern groups, including the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, had recently gave Nigerians of south-east extraction resident in the 19 states of the North a three-month ultimatum to quit or be forced out after the expiration of the October 1, 2017 deadline.
National President of the Northern Emancipation Network, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, who read the text of the press conference, claimed that the Igbo had become a threat to national unity. He further noted that the action of the North was necessitated by the persistence for the actualisation of Biafra by the Igbo, saying this had led to the impediment of other people’s rights in the South-East by ‘the Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB) and its overt and covert sponsors’.
Leader of IPOB, the separatist group, Nnamdi Kanu had equally threatened that his group would not allow the Anambra state governorship election slated for November to hold.
Oyegun said he was impressed by President Buhari’s resolve to deal with groups orchestrating plot to destabilize the country. He said: “The speech was absolutely outstanding. You see, he is the President of this nation. He has been away for quite a bit of time. Agents of destabilization have been very much at work because they thought his absence created a gap and a weakness within the polity which they tried to exploit.
“So Mr President in his wisdom discerned that the stability, unity, peace and security of this nation and the ordinary Nigerian are the key issues at this material time. He addressed them and went straight to the core of the issues. He left nobody in any doubt that any Nigerian is entitled as a matter of right to live, work and operate in any part of this country. He made it clear and left no one in any doubt that yes, while people can discuss issues and the relationship in the nation, the National Assembly is there to handle such issues. But he drew one red line that the only thing that is not on the table is that this nation can be divided. He made it clear that the unity of the Nigerian nation is not up for negotiation of any type.’’
“Mr. President picked on the core issue that was creating a lot of disquiet in the nation today and he made his views crisp and clear. Any leader must be able to set priorities. He set a very clear and unambiguous priority. The others he will deal with in the course of time.’’
The APC national chairman dismissed insinuation that President Buhari’s declaration that the nation unity was not negotiable was at variance with the party promise on devolution of party enunciated in its manifesto. He submitted that the President was not against national discourse on the structure of the country.
“He said quite clearly that you can discuss. The only issue that is out of bounds is the unity of this nation. That as the situation is today, the institutions of state that can legitimately deal with any changes in the relativity within the nation is the National Assembly and the National Council of State. It is the National Assembly that makes laws. So, the situation is so clear and unambiguous. He did not say you can’t discuss but the only issue that was not on the table is the unity of the Nigerian nation.’’
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