Arewa youths to northerners, Ignore IPOB provocations

By Grace anjuma with agency report

The Northern Youth Coalition has called on the people of Northern Nigeria wherever they live to henceforth ignore the activities of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the South-east zone of the country.
The coalition had earlier in the year issued a quit notice on the Igbo in the North over the activities of IPOB but later withdrew the notice after it drew widespread criticism.
At a press conference at the Nigerian Union of Journalists’ Press Centre in Kano on Wednesday, the group said it had realised that the whole essence the activities of IPOB was to provoke reactions from Northerners and make Nigeria ungovernable.
Spokesman of the group, AbdulAziz Suleiman, said: “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.”
He added, “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 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,” he said.
Suleiman, who spoke at the briefing alongside other leaders of the group, including Yarima Shatima and Mastura Sharif, commended the Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, for declaring a curfew on Aba.
He also applauded the interventions of the Nigerian military in the South-east zone.