The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has asked the governor of Kaduna, Nasir el-Rufai, not to “distract us”, as they are doing everything within their limits to ensure there is peace in the country.

Background:

• The Kaduna government obtained a bench warrant to arrest the members of the Northern coalition who issued quit notice to Igbos in the region – the notice has, however, been withdrawn.

Reaction:

• In an interview with The Sun, the leader of the forum,  Shettima Yerima said, “Honestly, we really do not want to join issues with him, what is before us is how to rebuild the country, and so far, we have been doing that. Probably the governor is working to distract the government and we cannot be an agent to distracting the government.”
• “We will ensure we do everything within our limits to ensure that there is peace in the country, and we have been demonstrating this. We will not allow him to distract us. We are wondering because El-Rufai never thought of this until few days before October 1, when the issue has been put behind us.”
• “We took it upon ourselves to go to Kano, a volatile area to address the northern youth and warned that nobody should attack any Igbo in the region; more so, there shouldn’t be any reprisal attack. No one from Southeast was harassed in the north. For him to come now is a clear indication for Nigerians to know the true enemy of the government, as well as, the true enemy of the country.”
• “What he is doing is to incite people against the government and he is playing with fire. That is exactly what he is demonstrating because there is peace in the land, and we are working to ensure that there is unity. About two weeks ago, we have conference of all the ethnic nationalities, where we resolved to work together in order to build a stable country as a panacea to having peace and progress and to support the good policies of the government, and suddenly, El-Rufai is coming up with this issue, after all the efforts we have been making to ensure peace.”

Reference:

El-Rufai had said the use of social media to promote hate speech will no longer be tolerated.

Omoleye Omoruyi

Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram