Four days after the police said it had launched a manhunt for the leaders of the Coalition of Northern Youth Groups that warned the Igbo to leave the North within three months, no member of the group has been arrested.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the coalition were said to have been seen holding meetings at Arewa House in Kaduna after last Tuesday when they issued their threat at a press conference. A police source said they had continued to meet in the Arewa House daring security agents to arrest them.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State had, on Wednesday, ordered the police to arrest the leaders of the coalition. The police said the order would be carried out. But the situation took a twist on Friday, after the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, backed the youths’ call on the Igbo to leave the North.
A source close to the NEF told Sunday Vanguard, last night, that the elders’ group’s position was a strategy designed to embolden the youths coalition.
‘Start packing’
Separately, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB), one of the groups spearheading the agitation for the separation of the South-East from Nigeria, yesterday, asked Igbo and other southerners resident in the North to start packing to leave the region.
IPoB, led by Nnamdi Kanu, the Director of Radio Biafra, who was recently released on bail after several months in detention on the grounds of his secessionist agitation, said the northern groups’ coalition had vindicated its position.
Some South-South leaders also joined the fray, saying the northern groups’ position indicated that a time-bomb was ticking that may lead to the disintegration of Nigeria.
Sunday Vanguard learnt, yesterday, that though the order to arrest the leaders of the coalition behind the quit order to the Igbo in the North was issued by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, no fruitful results appeared to have been made as of yesterday, regarding the arrest, just as no team had been assigned to handle the case.
A source at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, who spoke anonymously said: “As soon as we get strict official orders on what to do, we will not hesitate to take action because the anti-Igbo coalition leaders are well known, their activities are not hidden. So, I am sure we will do the needful as soon as practicable”.
Persistent calls to the telephone of the Force Public Relations Officer, FPRO, Jimoh Babatunde, to
