On Tuesday, 16 Northern youth groups met in Kaduna and issued a three-month ultimatum to all Igbo people living in Northern states to vacate the region by October 1, 2017, as well as calling on all Northerners in the South-East to return to the region.

To these groups, such a call has become necessary as a response to the agitation by secessionist groups such as the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and their recent sit-at-home idea, and they view this as the first step towards the “dissolution of a union that has not been convenient for any party.”

However, what this ultimatum also shows is the folly and ignorance of the groups behind it: it goes without saying that not every Igbo person is a supporter of IPOB or the call for the South-East to secede from Nigeria. It is nonsensical to lump all people of Igbo extraction into this category.

Not only that, the fact that there are Igbo and non-Northern people in the North living and doing business there is not a favour extended to them by people of the North; rather, it is the constitutional right of these non-Northerners to live and work anywhere they so desire to in Nigeria. It is in the same manner that there are millions of Northerners living and working outside the North.

Lastly, these groups are ignorant of how intertwined the various peoples of Nigeria are, that there are generations of families who have lived in either the North or the South despite not being indigenous to those areas. Asking them to uproot their lives back to ‘their’ regions will also mean disrupting their livelihoods and businesses.

Thankfully, this ultimatum has been condemned by many Nigerians, including the people that these groups claim to be speaking for. But more needs to be done:

First, it is imperative that security agencies place a close watch on these groups and also charge them with breaking the law if they believe any has been broken. They must not be treated like sacred cows.

Also, it is important that the leading socio-political groups in the North such as the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Northern Governors’ Forum publicly condemn these groups and distance themselves from it. Any failure will do so will be seen as tacit approval being given by silence.

Such rhetoric from these groups should not be taken lightly as it not only adds to a rapidly overheating polity, but can get out of hand and result to violence and conflagration.