Afenifere Berates Northern Youths, Restates Call For Their Arrest

By Oladipupo Mojeed

The Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has slammed a coalition of Arewa youth group for asking acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, to allow the Igbo secede from Nigeria if they want to.

spokesperson for the group, Yinka Odumakin, who spoke with Punch, asked Osinbajo to tell the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to arrest leaders of the northern groups.

Odumakin argued that the letter signified danger to the southerners in the North.

“This is a confirmation of what we have said so far. For almost 12 days after their inciting comments, none of them has been arrested by the police.

“That they are giving it back to the Acting President shows that they have an assignment they are carrying out for their sponsors. It also shows that the elders have failed to caution their youths.”

Call for referendum

Meanwhile, there is a disagreement between the Northern Elders Forum and the Northern Elders Council on the call by the coalition of northern youths to the acting President to organise a “referendum that will ease out the Igbo out of the country.”

The Chairman of the NEC, Tanko Yakasai, said the referendum would be unconstitutional.

He pointed out that “any secession could only be actualised by war.”

On his part, the Secretary of the NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, believes that the northern youths had made a workable recommendation since both warring parties had not shifted their grounds.

“You know that in the Nigerian constitution, there is no place where there is a national referendum for secession. If they (the youths) don’t know what they are doing, you should know what you are doing,” Yakasai stated.