Youth groups, mind your language

A statement signed by the group’s national president Mr. Aliyu Usman and its secretary Comrade Alfred Solomon said its action was in response to the recent arrest of Juma’at mosque imams in Abia State, the arrest of northern traders on their way to Port Harcourt, the plan to register Northern traders and artisans living in […]

A statement signed by the group’s national president Mr. Aliyu Usman and its secretary Comrade Alfred Solomon said its action was in response to the recent arrest of Juma’at mosque imams in Abia State, the arrest of northern traders on their way to Port Harcourt, the plan to register Northern traders and artisans living in Imo and Enugu States as well “the happenings at the national confab”, which the group described as regrettable. The group went further to say that “in the event that all the resolutions fail, we call on all Northerners to rise and support agitations for a peaceful dissolution of this union called Nigeria, for every region to go its own way”.
Hot on the heels of these unguarded utterances, private bills were submitted to both the Kano and Kaduna State Houses of Assembly seeking to register all Southerners living in the two states. An NGO called Concerned Arewa Citizens submitted a bill to the Kaduna State House of Assembly earlier this week seeking for the registration and issuance of work permit to all Southerners living in the state. President-General of the group Audu Bulama Bukarti, who presented the bill to Speaker Alhaji Shehu Tahir, said the “Registration of Southerners and Allied Matters Bill” seeks to protect the state from “the evils of drugs and human trafficking, kidnappings, baby factories, armed robbery, importation of firearms, pipeline vandalism and other terrorist activities” which he said are prevalent in Southern Nigeria. A similar bill was sent to the Kano State House of Assembly last week.  
The Federal Government responded on Monday by directing governors whose states are registering and deporting ‘non-indigenes’ to stop the practice forthwith,  describing such moves as more dangerous than the Boko Haram insurgency. Soon after a National Security Council meeting chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan, the Director-General of the Department of State Security (DSS) Ita Ekpeyong said the meeting condemned the registration and deportation of non-indigenes and directed that it be stopped forthwith. He said the council discussed groups’ reactions to the incident in Kano and other states and observed that the threat it posed could disintegrate the country. “The council observed that this threat was more potent than Boko Haram and could disintegrate the country,” Ekpeyong said.  
The question to ask is: why did the Federal Government and the National Security Council fail to see the dangers when state governments were apprehending travellers along highways and registering non-indigenes resident in their states? It was only when there were reactions in Kano and Kaduna with similarly misguided and unconstitutional measures that the Federal Government woke up to its responsibility and realised that this is “more dangerous than Boko Haram”. This tardy and incompetent handling of the situation has succeeded in sending a very wrong message to the groups involved. They will claim, with justification, that the only language the Federal Government understands is to meet blackmail with blackmail, illegality with illegality and violence with violence.
We strongly advise the Presidency and the security chiefs to learn a lesson from this episode and to act promptly, decisively and wisely the next time when local authorities take measures that threaten the country’s peace and harmony in the name of protecting themselves. As for the youth groups, we urge them not to learn the wrong lessons from this episode. As young men and women their main challenge is to further their education so as to become very productive citizens. Two wrongs do not make a right. A youth group should not make a weighty, unguarded utterance that Nigeria should be dissolved, however provoked they think they are.