Govs’ hostage: Northern youths spit fire

Northern youths, under the auspices of Arewa Rapid Response Network (ARRN), have said they will retaliate if the ‘persistent humiliation’ of their leaders continues. The youths issued the threat yesterday in a statement following Tuesday’s incident in Rivers State where four northern governors were held hostage by suspected political thugs.

They warned that the North would no longer tolerate a situation where their leaders were made to face a gangster-like humiliation in the way it was done in Rivers State.

According to National Coordinator of the group, Yakubu Ahmed, “Northern youths equally have many options including the option of retaliating and if anybody is in the doubt, then Jonathan and his cohorts should be held responsible if a repeat of the Rivers State show of shame leads to other unpalatable events that may follow.

“The North has received enough humiliation in the course of the Jonathan presidency with criminal war lords calling our leaders unprintable names, calling for war against the North, making inflammatory statements and challenging the basis of our nationhood without any effort by the presidency to call them to order.

“The fact that Rivers State has been on the boil (and is still boiling) arising from the badly mismanaged imbroglio between the desperate pro-Jonathan forces bent on forcing the president on the PDP in the 2015 general elections and the supporters of Governor Rotimi Amaechi is no longer in contention.

“It is clear to all that the Presidency is the chief instigator of the violence in Port Harcourt, which has almost made the state ungovernable leading to the taking over of the functions of the Rivers State House of Assembly by the House of Representatives. As things stand now, the crisis in Rivers State is threatening to engulf the nation due to the risky dimension the problem is taking.

“While the crisis may look entirely as the business of the PDP, we must be careful not to stir up other chain of events that would snowball into an uncontrollable national crisis capable of leading to other unsavoury events that may truncate our nascent and vulnerable democracy.

“We recall that the election of the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum at which the candidate of the president was squarely defeated as well as other unpalatable consequences that have rattled the presidency were at the base of the Rivers crisis, we hasten to caution that the dimension the crisis is taking in relation to the events that led to the pelting of four governors from the North, who paid a solidarity visit to the their Rivers State counterpart would, if not well handled, lead to other events whose results could not be guessed.

“It is as if history meant nothing to the agent-provocateurs of Rivers State particularly the pro-Jonathan drum beaters of war, who appeared irredeemably bent at having their way regardless of the dangers their action pose for the nation.

“The act of pelting northern leaders has proved, in the past, to be dangerous to national cohesion and we must stress here that the action of some misguided youths in Port Harcourt against the four visiting northern governors has the potentials to be interpreted as a calculated attempt by the Jonathan Presidency to humiliate our leaders and to kickstart the beginning of a larger anti-North movement aimed at facilitating the disintegration of the country in the event that Jonathan loses his bid for another term.

“We, in the Arewa Rapid Response Network view this dangerous trend as inimical to the well being of the country and capable of pitching one section of the country against another – all in a diabolical attempt to get another term for an underperforming president.

“We view this as approval of the actions of the criminal elements. There is a limit to our tolerance and the fact that we have restrained ourselves should not be seen as cowardice,” the statement read.

The youth group therefore appealed to all reasonable people in the country to call those working against the Nigerian project to order, so that Nigerians would join hands together to move the nation forward by respecting each other and evolving collective measures to ensure growth and integration.

Source
Sun news

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