Breaking: Northern Elders Bombs Southern Governors Over Oduduwa/Biafra Agitation

The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) has accused governors in the Southern region OF Nigeria of surrendering to secessionists.

The Publisher Nigeria reports that various groups have recently popped up calling for the establishment of Biafra and Oduduwa Republic.

In a statement made available to newsmen by its spokesman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the forum said southern governors are building “ethnic monsters” while hiding behind them to whip up sentiments.

Reacting to the recent ban on open grazing, the group accused governors of making a desperate but futile attempt to split the north.

The forum stated that the North will not be cowed and stampeded into escorting political ambitions of politicians at the cost of its rights, security and dignity.

The Northern Elders called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assert the powers of the constitution to protect Nigeria’s territorial integrity and secure citizens, or accept that he is incapable of leading the nation through these unprecedented challenges.

Baba-Ahmed said: “It is now clear that elected people who swore to protect the constitution and protect the unity and integrity of Nigeria have decided to surrender to deeply divisive or outrightly irredentist and secessionist tendencies and movements.

“Governors are building ethnic monsters and hiding behind them to whip up sentiments in a crude attempt to extract concessions no one is in a position to give or guarantee. A desperate but futile attempt is being made to split the North along lines that suit people who ignore its complexities and plurality when it is convenient to lump all Northerners and submit them to humiliation or attacks.

“In the South East, governors are yielding their political turf and mandates to secessionists, criminals and subversives who think they can exterminate federal presence and northerners from the region, and achieve dubious political goals related to 2023, or break away from the country.

“In the South West, elected leaders and pampered ethnic bullies are closing ranks to provide a front that apes the do-what-we-want-or-we-leave-the-country strategy of the marginalized leaders of the South East.

“The South South is squeezed between fear and uncertainty, and its leaders are gambling that they can benefit from further weakening the federal administration and the North if it rides along with the rest of the South.

“The forum supports a citizen-driven national dialogue and a campaign to get the government to accord its outcome the respect it deserves.

“The forum extends its hands to groups that genuinely believe that Nigerians should demand and design the type of country we want, and should not wait for people we elected to set the boundaries and conditions of our existence.”