Hot debate over arrest of 486 Northerners

Sergeant Awuse, a delegate from Rivers State who raised a point of order told delegates that any attack on Port Harcourt will have grave consequences for the nation. Raising questions as to the number of buses and people involved, Awuse said “we are worried because any attempt in sabotaging the oil installation will not only cost […]

Sergeant Awuse, a delegate from Rivers State who raised a point of order told delegates that any attack on Port Harcourt will have grave consequences for the nation.
 Raising questions as to the number of buses and people involved, Awuse said “we are worried because any attempt in sabotaging the oil installation will not only cost the economy of this nation money but it can cause disasters that we will not be able to handle.
 “Particularly, we do not want Boko Haram in our area; we do not want them in our area. I am saying this from a background that from dependable security sources, we are aware that those 33 buses were not the only ones; some have been infiltrated from the same place they came from,” he said.
 But Bashir Dalhatu, a delegate from Jigawa State cautioned against profiling northerners and arbitrarily arresting them because of where they come from or for their religion.
“We must exercise great and serious caution when we address very serious national issues on the floor of this conference…when some of us heard of this information, a lot of us were scampering around to actually authenticate this information, we have been assisted however by information from various sources that these people who were arrested in Aba are migrant traders.
“Talking about convoys, every single night between two and three o’clock in the morning you find people in convoy moving from the East to the North; every single night and we don’t stop them and arrest them and say these are armed robbers, we accept them and give them hospitality and friendship.
 “In Nigeria today, the law says I as a Nigerian and anybody else can travel to anywhere in this country at any time of the day without let or hindrance, from any source, authority or not,” Dalhatu said.