Inter-ethnic tension is beginning to threaten the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) since the commencement of Operation python dance II in Abia State over the agitation for the Sovereign State of Biafra by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu.
The agitation had earlier provoked the Coalition of Arewa Youths who, penultimate week, made a famous Kaduna Declaration, issuing October 1, 2017, ultimatum for Igbo to vacate the region. While the northern youths reviewed their action, threat of violence escalated in the South East with the military occupation of the territory in a seeming routine security exercise that has culminated into reports of military brutality.
However, the Northern Youth Coalition, (Arewa Youths), have shown their awareness of the potential danger in getting involved in inter-ethnic conflagration with the Igbo nation, acknowledging the fear that inter-ethnic violence will cause fall of Buhari administration.
Accordingly, the Arewa Youth Coalition called on all northerners residing in any part of Nigeria to ignore any agitation or provocation from the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and his supporters.
The group in a press conference in Kano, on Wednesday, at the Nigerian Union of Journalists’ Press Centre, declared that the whole essence of Kanu and the IPOB agitation was to provoke reactions and/or reprisals from Northerners and make Nigeria ungovernable.
Clashes between troops of the Nigerian Army, deployed to the five states of the South East engaged in Operation Python Dance II, and IPOB supporters; as well as between IPOB supporters and Hausa communities in Umuahia and Rivers, had generated tension in the North, and threats of reprisal attacks, compelling the intervention of the northern youths.
Being conscious of the potential danger and the threat to Nigeria’s integration, the Northern Youth Coalition declared that northerners would not be provoked into reprisal attack, knowing the consequence, that taking such moves would simply play into the calculations of IPOB.
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The group argued that singling out of President Muhammadu Buhari for attacks by IPOB is mere tactics to cause inter-regional crisis in order to usher in a change of government by whatever means.
“All the violent activities playing out are well planned to escalate by 2019, and starting from 2018, to prevent a successful conduct of elections and eventually the collapse of this Buhari government and democracy in Nigeria,” the Arewa youths had said.
“In this situation, it is essential that the north and northerners remain restrained and refuse to be provoked into reprisals which is the ultimate hope of the conflict instigators.
The northern youths further contended that, “The agitations and disturbances that have been ongoing ceaselessly since the coming of Buhari/Osibanjo administration are aimed at rendering the country practically ungovernable and ushering in of anarchy and instability, thereby, occasioning a change of government by whatever means.”
“And the singling out of Buhari for attacks is a tactics to cause inter-regional crisis possibly leading to general unrest,” they said.
The northern youths had earlier issued all Igbo resident in the 19 northern states an eviction notice to vacate the region before October 1, 2017, because of the Biafra agitation, particularly, after the May 30 sit at home order which recorded 100 per cent compliance in the South East, paralyzing commercial activities across the country. The Arewa youths, however, reversed the quit notice thereafter.