A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE QUIT ORDER TO THE IGBO BY COALITION OF NORTHERN YOUTHS, CNY.
BY SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP
OKWUBUNKA OF ASA
10TH JUNE, 2017

Last Tuesday, 6th June, 2017 gave birth to a development that no Nigerian, especially of Igbo extraction, would be in a hurry to forget.

In Kaduna, headquarters of defunct Northern Region of Nigeria, a Coalition of northern youths had gathered in famous Arewa House. The gathering was to announce what the youths captioned as Kaduna Declaration.

In a Press release read by the National President of Northern Emancipation Network, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, the Coalition issued a three-month quit notice to the Igbo in the North of Nigeria.

According to the release, the Igbo leaving in the region only have between 6th June and 30th of September to relocate from the region.

From the 1st of October of this year, any Igbo, as the threat warns, that fails to comply with the order would have himself or herself to blame.

The Coalition said her position was sequel to the demand of the Igbo to have their self-determination in Nigeria where their lot has been marginalization and neglect.

As long as I know the people of the North, this threat has total support of the Northern establishment, including their elites.

Since the issuance of this threat, some people, especially from the Igbo, have been labouring to water down realities inherent in the threat.

Some, out of inexperience or even mischief, have tried to dismiss the threat as an empty one coming from a faceless youth group.

Governors of Northern States have supposedly condemned the threat by their youths. To be specific, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, did not only speak against it but also asked the Police to arrest the youths that issued the threat.

Here, in the South-East, it was reported that the Governors had met and decided to hire and flood the North with luxury buses for mass evacuation of the Igbo from the North.

That decision, we later learnt, was cancelled due to the stand of Governors of the North which was at variance with that of their youths.

By implication or simple interpretation, the Igbo in the North have been given an assurance that their stay in that region does not amount to any risk to them.

This is, however, a blanket deceit. In the first instance, the venue of the meeting was Arewa House. For any meeting to be allowed to hold in that House, the Powers that be must know the Conveners and, of course, the purpose.

For Youth Organizations under the umbrella of the Arewa to come together, as they did last Tuesday, and openly make a declaration of the most sensitive nature, their elders must be in the know.

Undoubtedly, two strong voices of the northern irredentism, Prof Ngo Abdulahi and Dr Junaid Mohammed, have both separately spoken and each spoke in support of the Northern Youths.

Prof Abdulahi, in order to buttress his support for the declaration, questioned the authority of the Northern Governors to counter the position of the Coalition of Northern Youths on the quit notice issued to the Igbo.

The least informed in Nigeria knows that the Kaduna declaration is treasonable. The signatories to the declaration and the conveners should have been arrested and detained in less than forty-eight hours after the declaration as it was done to Nnamdi Kanu of Biafra agitation.

More than one hundred hours after that treasonable declaration, no arrest has been made. The Spokesman of Force Headquarters of the Nigerian Police, Mr Jimoh Moshood, was reported to have said that the Police were still searching for the Northern Youths who issued the ultimatum. What a deceit!

If I were unfortunate to be living in the North at this moment or had any close relation of mine living over there, with this threat which is most likely to come to fulfilment, no preaching would make me not to relocate from there or insist that my close relation returns with speed.

Life has no duplicate. Once it stops, hardly does any miracle revive it. Experiments are better conducted with animals, birds or plants.

The Igbo have unwittingly severally stood behind for costly experiments in the past. Ordinary experience should have taught them, by now, that once the North threatens, especially the Moslem North, nothing will make them go back.

A stitch in time saves nine. I will shade no tears for any Igbo that is butchered, as it will surely happen, in the North from 1st of October.

Okwubunka of Asa.

A deafening silence on reasons for the eviction.

IPOB 's rascality became intolerable. One was beginning to wonder why people who need Nigeria most will be chattering for A very long time in the name of clamour for independent. I think this Kaduna declaration has brought them back to sense.