unnecessary baggage carried too far and for too long,” the group partly stated in the statement.”
Professor Ango Abdullahi, Northern Elders’ Forum spokesman, openly supported the position of the youths and lambasted northern leaders who condemned the demands by the youths.
According to some closer watchers of the polity, no other signal could tell of an impending danger than the failure of all security departments of the country to arrest the youth leaders behind the quit notice order, especially when Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, in whose state the quit notice was issued, had ordered their arrest.
Though many prominent Nigerians across the country have branded the quit notice order as heinous offense, both the youths and their backers such as Abdullahi, have stuck to their guns insisting that Igbo must go with Nigerian security operatives seemingly issuing empty threats.
Further complexities have been thrown into #breakupnigeria move with corresponding quit notice dished out by some Niger Delta militants directing that all northerners should vacate the oil region, coupled with demand for a Niger Delta Republic. With the Yorubas demanding Oodua Republic, Nigeria appears all set to prove the American intelligence right.
Will Afenifere, Ohanaeze romance last?
The Department of State (DSS) in a statement released through its spokesman 10 days after Arewa youths’ quit notice, merely cautioned those fanning the embers of discord in the country to desist from such activities.
Meanwhile, while the DSS and other security operatives continue to grandstand over the situation, more divide appears to have been created with other southern leaders counseling the South-East not to honour any meeting called by Acting President Osinbajo without the inclusion of the entire southern regions.
In a communiqué issued at the end a meeting in Lagos and signed by Ayo Adebanjo (South – West), retired Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (South – East) and Chief Albert Horsfall (South-South ) and read to newsmen by the spokesperson for the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, southern leaders asked Arewa youths to withdraw their October 1, quit notice order to Ndigbo living in the North insisting that attack on the ethnic group will be considered as an attack on the entire southern region of the country.
They also insisted on the implementation of the report of the 2014 National Conference, which they say aims at a complete transformation and restructuring of the country and to build and consolidate Nigeria’s unity through national solidarity, peaceful and harmonious coexistence, progress and genuine developments.
With apparent lack of wilingness by the Federal Government to implement the Confab report, there is fear of imminent trouble that could arise from those insisting on restructuring.
The Nigerian wound goes deeper than imagined
What seems to be more worrisome in the possible end of a country called Nigeria under Buhari’s administration is the resolve with which those fanning embers of disunity have kept and maintained their grounds despite Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s consultative meetings with the North and South-East.
Despite threats of arrest and accusation of breaking the laws of the land, the Arewa youths and their supporters have insisted that Ndigbo must leave and
