Arewa Youths, under the aegis of Northern Youth Assembly (NYA), have vowed to occupy and take over the secretariat of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) should the Board of Trustees of ACF fail to reinstated threatened to take over the their chairman, Mr Mamman Mike Osuman, handing seven days ultimatum to carry out their threat.
Mr Mamman, it would be recalled, was recently suspended by the Board of Trustees of the ACF for saying that ACF would only support a northern presidential candidate in the 2027 general election.
NYA said it received with shock, the statement jointly signed by Alhaji Bashir Muhammad Dalhatu and Alhaji Murtala Aliyu, ACF’s Board of Trustees chairman and secretary respectively, where Mr Mamman was suspended for criticising the Tinubu-led administration’s anti-citizens policies.
“We therefore wish to unequivocally put out before the BOT of the ACF to, as a matter of urgency, lift the suspension of Mr Mamman and restore all his powers and honour within the next seven days or we shall be left with no other option but to mobilise the youths from the nineteen northern states to take over the ACF secretariat in Kaduna in the interest of the Northern Nigeria people, particularly the youths.
“We are therefore of a strong opinion that Nigerians deserve better than what they are getting under the present Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration who is hellbent on heeding to the dangerous evil and anti-people economic policy advisory of IMF and World Bank thereby throwing millions of Nigerians into a bad and unprecedented economic situation,” it warned.
It said most of the Tinubu policies particularly affected the innocent people from the Northern part of the country, leading to widespread and untold hardship.
The NYA threat letter, which was signed by Comrade Adikwu Omaji Joshua, its national publicity Secretary, Abdulhafiz Garba, it’s National secretary, Ali Mohammed Idris, and president, and nineteen northern state coordinators and Abuja, accused the ACF of reducing itself to becoming mere agents of protecting the Tinubu government despite its continued oppression, impoverishing and staving the Nigerian citizens.
It said, “It is rather shameful that the ACF that is presumably expected to be on the side of the masses will resort to such incivility and undemocratic action against one of its respected leader simply for speaking on behalf of the masses against the increasing anti-peoples policies of Tinubu’s government, the worst in the Nigerian democratic journey so far.”
The NYA described the shameful action of the ACF’s BOT as a clear indication that the ACF is not for the Arewa masses who bear much of the brunt of these anti human policing which has pushed millions of Nigerians into object poverty.
“The action against the personality of the chairman was impliedly aimed at pleasing President Ahmed Bola Tinubu for self-serving interest and political ambition despite the growing tendency of President Tinubu persecuting the people of Northern Nigeria despite their political magnanimity to him in 2023 general election.
“Therefore, unless necessary measures are taken to address these concerns, it won’t be out of place if a Northern Nigerian regional campaign is launched to call and support the emergence of a new and capable person from the Northern region come 2027 to take over the political ship of the country, especially as it is obvious that President Tinubu is failing”, it warned.