Northern youths insist Igbos should go

The coalition of Northern Youths that gave Igbos three months quit notice to leave the North has insisted that the only peaceful resolution to end the current agitation for the state of Biafra is to allow the Igbos to go.

This was even as they implored the Federal Government and the international community to plan for referendum that would effect their call.

This was contained in a statement issued to newsmen in Kaduna and signed by the spokesman for the coalition, Alhaji Abdulazeez Suleiman on Thursday.

The statement noted, ‘It should be recalled that on Tuesday June 6, 2017 this coalition led several other northern groups to review the position of the North in the wake of the widening and escalating movement for secession orchestrated by groups in Eastern Nigeria.

‘At the end, we came up with a position paper which we presented as the Kaduna Declaration in which we primarily called on the authorities and the international community to step in to formalise the actualisation of the dream of a people who say in words and in action, and the whole nation appears to concur, that they are Biafrans not Nigerians.

‘We further urged those Biafran nationales to relocate from the North to their newfound country in order to allow other people have peace.

‘We are today compelled to make this further statement to clarify our stand on some issues that trailed the Kaduna Declaration made on Tuesday June 6, 2017.

The statement observed that, ‘After meeting to review the fallout of that Tuesday’s Declaration, our groups have arrived at the following fundamental observations:

“That some elements have for reasons best known to them, mischievously distorted the intent of our original script by alluding such words as violence, threat, war and mass action to it.

“We find this mischievous because as cultured thoroughbred Northerners we have never anywhere and at any time, under whatever circumstances, called anybody to violence as a means of conflict resolution.

“In strict observance of that tradition we never employ violence as a means of pursuing our interest and at every opportunity, we opt for peaceful engagements and implore people to eschew violence in all its ramifications.

“This informs why, a majority of discerning Nigerians, not necessarily northerners alone, understood and identified with our express call for the Biafrans to be allowed to actualise their long-held secessionist aspiration.”

To this end, the statement reiterated that “We 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.

“We 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.

“We 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.

“We reiterate our call on Nigerian authorities and recognised 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 Igbos out of the present federation.”