Southern Leaders Forum (SLF) on Wednesday said that President Muhammadu
Buhari’s actions through lopsided appointments, concentration of key
security appointments in a section of the country, flagrant disregard for
federal character principle, indifference to murderous activities of
Fulani herdsmen greatly contributed to agitations in the country.

The leaders also said the national broadcast by President Buhari on Monday
in which he said he and the late Chief Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu agreed in
2003 that Nigeria must remain one and united is not a Sovereign National
Conference and should not be taken as the collective decision of Nigerians
which cannot be reviewed.

The Southern leaders in a statement signed by Chief Edwin Clark and Chief
A K Horsfall for the South-South; Chief Nnia Nwodo and Prof. Joe Irukwu
for South-East and Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Chief Reuben Fasoranti for
South-West also said the statement by the president that recent comments
have crossed the red line is an attempt to commence the criminalising of
dissenting opinions as hate speech, especially given the recent direction
by the vice president that hate speech will henceforth be regarded as
terrorism.

“The president expressed his dissatisfaction about comments on Nigeria
while he was away that ‘question our collective existence as a nation’ and
which he said have crossed the ‘red lines’. Against the background of the
threat to treat ‘hate speech’ as ‘terrorism’, we see a veiled threat to
bare fangs and commence the criminalisation of dissenting opinions in our
national discourse”, the Southern leaders said.

Dangerous To Deal With Dissent By Force

They noted that “experience worldwide has shown that any attempt to deal
with dissent by force usually drives it underground which makes it much
more dangerous and difficult to deal with. We should have learnt a lesson
or two from Boko Haram which was an open organisation before the state
drove it underground and we are still under its reign of terror despite
official claim that it has been ‘technically defeated’ or ‘degraded’.

“As elders who believe that it is better to seek solutions to problems, we
appeal that we must engage in social engineering fully aware that
globalisation has made it very difficult to use repressive tactics to
repress opinions.

Unity Of Nigeria Negotiable
“Mr. President deploys the imagery of the late Chief Emeka Ojukwu to play
down the demand for the renegotiation of the structure of Nigeria by
saying they both agreed in Daura in 2003 that we must remain ‘one and
united’. While we agree with them, the meeting between the two of them
could not have been a Sovereign National Conference whose decisions cannot
be reviewed. The fact that we agree on their conclusion that we should
remain united does not foreclose discussions of the terms and conditions
of the union”.

“The claim that Nigeria’s ‘unity is settled and not negotiable’ is
untenable…Every country is a daily dialogue and there is nothing finally
settled in its life. Stable nations are still fine-tuning details of the
architecture of their existence now and then. How much more Nigeria that
has yet to attain nationhood?

“If we are a settled nation, we would not be dealing with the many crises
of nation building that are afflicting us today which have made it
extremely difficult to squarely and urgently face issues of growth and
development.

“The British negotiated to put the various ethnic groups together. All the
constitutional conferences held in the years before independence were
negotiations. When the North walked out of the parliament in 1953 after
Chief Anthony Enahoro moved the motion for independence it took
negotiations to bring them back into the union after their eight-point
agenda which was mainly about confederation. All the conferences held
after independence on constitutionalism are all forms of negotiations.
There is no peaceful co-existence that is not about negotiations in a
plural society”.

Arrest Arewa Youths Over Quit Notice On Igbos

The leaders, who said President Buhari’s words that Nigerians can live
anywhere is too short to address the danger posed by the quit notice by
Arewa youths to Igbos living in their region, also noted that it is
distressed over the failure of security agents to arrest the masterminds
of the quit notice after the order was given by Governor Nasir el-Rufai
and Acting President Osinbajo.

“The one sentence by the president that every Nigerian can live anywhere
without let or hindrance if meant to address the quit notice by Arewa
youths against Igbos is rather too short to address the clear and present
danger that the unwarranted threat represents.

“We are distressed by the refusal of the police to comply with the arrest
orders given by the Kaduna State governor and the vice president while the
president was away. Instead of ensuring that these orders are carried out,
the president has now come to just make a bland comment on the explosive
issue. We are of the view that leadership requires more than this at this
crucial moment”, they said.

Speaking further, the Southern leaders said, “We acknowledge the
president’s admission that there are ‘legitimate concerns’ in the land
.That is commendable. We, however, disagree with his take that Nigeria is
a ‘federation’.

“Nigeria ceased to be a federation since 1966 after the first coup. The
turning of Nigeria into a unitary constitution which is not conducive for
peace and development in a multi-ethnic country is what the
military-imposed 1999 constitution, which lied against itself with the ‘We
the people’, is all about. This is the taproot of the crisis of nationhood
in Nigeria”.

They noted, “We do not accept the president’s claim that the National
Assembly and the Council of State are the only legitimate, appropriate
bodies for national discourse. While we do not dispute that these are
legal bodies, we insist they are not appropriate bodies to discuss the
social contract that could bind us together as a nation-state.

“While the composition of the National Assembly is clearly jigged and
indeed one of the bodies to be restructured, the Council of State is not
open to Nigerians for any discourse. If any ‘discourse’ is to take place
on constitutional changes within the democratic framework Mr. President is
the one who has the responsibility to initiate the appropriate process”.

Buhari Taking Sides With Fulani Herdsmen

They also averred that Buhari’s broadcast in which he described the
attacks against defenseless farmers and Fulani herdsmen as a conflict
between two quarrelling group portrays him as taking sides with the
aggressive herdsmen.

“We are equally miffed that the president talks about the serial
onslaughts by AK-47 wielding Fulani herdsmen against defenseless farmers
as a conflict between two quarreling groups. In the last two years, the
Fulani herdsmen have become much more ferocious in their attacks against
farmers in the South and Middle Belt areas of the country with security
forces shying away from enforcing law and order. To present the various
onslaughts on farmers by these herdsmen as ‘two-fighting’ would portray
the president as taking sides with the aggressive Miyeti Allah.

“While we do not hold the administration responsible for all the causes of
agitations in Nigeria due to the crises of unitary constitution, there are
clearly many errors of commission and omission the government has
committed that have accentuated the strong self-determination feelings and
agitations across the country which only restructuring can tame today:

“The insensitive and clearly lopsided recruitments/appointments into all
federal institutions. Even key prominent northern leaders have expressed
openly their disapproval of the pattern of appointments.

“Concentration of most of the heads of armed forces and other national
security agencies in a section of the country.

“The president going on a global stage to say he could not treat those who
gave him 5% of their votes equally with those who supported him with 97%.

“Official indifference to the murderous activities of herdsmen against
peace -loving citizens on their farms and other settlements.

“The flagrant breach of the constitutionally enshrined federal character
principle. Appointment of legal adviser of Meyiti Allah as Secretary of
the Federal Character Commission.

“The early retirement of mostly southern senior officers from the Nigerian
armed forces and other security forces.

“As elders who have spent most of our lives fighting for the unity of the
country based on justice, fairness and equity, we call on the president to
realise that the country is in a very bad shape at the moment and requires
statesmanship and not ethnic, religious, regional and political
partisanships.

“This is the time to renegotiate Nigeria along federal lines negotiated by
our founding fathers to stem the tide of separatist feelings and
agitations. This is why we do not accept that it portrays the president in
a favorable light to be away for a long time and to return to a badly
fractured polity and avoid promoting in a new dialogue for a better, just,
inclusive and peaceful country”.

http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/exclusive/southern-leaders-buhari-actions-fueled-agitations-accuses-shielding-fulani-herdsmen/

Buhari is a fool

"President Muhammadu Buhari, must not be surprised or bothered by whatever the Southern leaders, say because, the Southern leaders are remnants of PDP led by former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
Southern leaders, have not ever support or hold their allegiance to president Muhammadu Buhari, or Nigeria-state, but to the Biafra-agitators, as most Nigerian-voters in the Southern region solidly hold their full support for the PDP and Nanmdi Kanu,s Biafra movement.Southern leaders, failed woefully to exert control over Nnamdi Kanu, and their other militants-terrorists youth in their communities who are receiving and enjoying full support of these Southern leaders, to kill oil explorers and damage oil pipelines.President Muhammadu Buhari, can not ever trust any Southern leaders..." Dr Pat Kolawole Awosan
-------------------------------------------------------------

Reading the above comment from Kolawole, which is a response to the SLF communique, one would wonder why most southern Yorubas prefer the north...It would have been better to have 25 northern states...Wait a minute...this guy could be from Ilorin...

Southern leaders had the opportunities of making things right but they choosed to worship the Northern leaders, why complain now

Southern leaders are disappointments.

The country is in disarray

This is lovely.
Why didn't someone from the Middle Belt also sign this? This is the best time to save Nigeria.
But the illiterate filling Nigerian may not understand this "dogon trenchi"..

smartty68:
Southern leaders had the opportunities of making things right but they choosed to worship the Northern leaders, why complain now

Southern leaders are disappointments.

The country is in disarray

You might be right..

All the Southern leaders had to do is to support their youth...even sponspor them in their actions like the northern leaders do...They should come out together and challenge the north....Now the north feels like they own Nigeria....Why would some posts be left ONLY for the northerners, if Nigeria belongs to all of us? Nobody has challeneged this. Some southern people, especially most SW people sheepishly accept whatever the north says because they are afraid.....

God bless those real yoruba leaders..
Others are mere a4onja

smartty68:
Southern leaders had the opportunities of making things right but they choosed to worship the Northern leaders, why complain now

Southern leaders are disappointments.

The country is in disarray

am sure u mean southern Yoruba leaders..and which one be "CHOOSED" again?

well,those are 'past tenses',lets forge a new way out of the hausa/fulani grip...we can then sort out ourselves out l8a.

Cooly100:


You might be right..

All the Southern leaders had to do is to support their youth...even sponspor them in their actions like the northern leaders do...They should come out together and challenge the north....Now the north feels like they own Nigeria....Why would some posts be left ONLY for the northerners, if Nigeria belongs to all of us? Nobody has challeneged this. Some southern people, especially most SW people sheepishly accept whatever the north says because they are afraid.....

I agree with you...!

anybody hoping on the restructuring of Nigeria is deceiving himself, disintegration is the only way out.

Whom does not know that buhari ravaged this country in all ramification. He has no excuse to give. He failed us all.