Arewa youths withdraws quit notice
Arewa youths withdraws quit notice
The groups, under the banner of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, issued the quit notice in June, asking Igbos to leave before October 1 and claiming their demand was in response to secessionist stance of some pro-Biafran groups, like Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB.
The quit notice to the Igbos has been condemned by most Nigerians including the federal government, several state governments and traditional rulers.
The groups announced a suspension of the quit notice on Thursday at a press briefing at the Transcorp hotel in Abuja.
Southern leaders react 
to President Buhari's speech, insist on restructuring
Author: Omotayo Yusuf
Updated: 10 hours ago
Views: 60004
Category: Local news
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- Southern leaders are insisting Nigeria must be restructured
- They said without this, the unity of the country would be at stake
- They called on the president to support it as a way of moving the 
country forward
The Southern Leaders Forum (SLF) has reacted to President Muhammadu 
Buhari’s address to the nation saying his discussion with Emeka Ojukwu 
does not end the discussion on Nigeria.
The Punch reports that the leaders met in Lagos on Wednesday, August 23 
over the need for the country to be restructured.
The forum, represented by Chiefs Edwin Clark, Albert Horsefall 
(south-south); Chief John Nwodo, Prof. Joe Irukwu (south-east); and 
Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Chief Ayo Adebanjo (south-west), spoke in Lagos 
at a press conference titled, ‘Only Restructuring will Ensure the Unity,
 Peace and Development of Nigeria.’
READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu sends strong message to President Buhari
Others at the event included Prof. Banji Akintoye, Tony Uranta, national
 coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Chief Gani Adams; Supo 
Shonibare, Guy Ikokwu, Tony Nyiam and Prof. Walter Ofonagoro.
The forum insisted that the discussion on restructuring starts with the 
president and not the National Assembly as contained in Buhari’s speech.
“While the composition of the National Assembly is clearly jigged and 
indeed one of the bodies to be restructured, the National Council of 
State is not open to Nigerians. 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 process,” the group 
said.
The group accused President Buhari of trying to downplay the discussion 
on restructuring by referring to his discussion with Ojukwu.
“The meeting between the two of them could not have been a Sovereign 
National Conference whose decisions cannot be reviewed. We agree with 
their conclusion that we should remain united, but that does not 
foreclose discussions of the terms and conditions of the union.
“The claim that Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable is not 
tenable. Every country is in 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. How much more Nigeria 
that has yet to attain nationhood? If we are settled as a nation, we 
will not be dealing with the many crises of nation-building that are 
afflicting us today, which have made it extremely difficult to squarely 
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 an eight-point 
agenda, which was mainly about confederations,” the group added.
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The SLF also criticised President Buhari’s description of Fulani 
herdsmen attack on farmers as a case of “two fighting” groups.
The forum said: “To present the various onslaughts on farmers by the 
herdsmen as ‘two fighting,’ would portray the President as taking sides 
with the aggressive Meyitti Allah. While we do not hold the 
administration responsible for all agitations in Nigeria due to the 
crises of unitary constitution, there are clearly many errors of 
commission and omission that have accentuated the strong 
self-determination feelings across the country which only restructuring 
can tame.”
Meanwhile, a member of the House of Representatives, Bolaji Ayinla, said
 on Tuesday, August 22, that Nigeria’s problem was an absence of 
maintenance culture for its infrastructure, and not restructuring.
Ayinla, who represents Mushin 2 Constituency of Lagos state, stated this
 in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. Read 
more: https://www.naij.com/1121840-southern-leaders-react-president-buharis-speech-insist-restructuring.html
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