Do Not Implement 2014 Confab Recommendations – Arewa Youths Warn, Backs Igbo’s Secession

Some Northern youths under the umbrella of Arewa Liberation Movement (ALM) has issued a stern warning against the implementation of the 2014 Confab Recommendations, saying that it was drafted to favour a particular group.

The group exressed this in a statement jointly signed by its National President, Usman A. Usman and National Secretary Kabir Haruna Alfa, made available to newsmen in Kaduna on Friday.

“ALM is against the implementation of the 2014 Confab recommendations as agitated by the South-South leaders before October 1st, 2017 during their parley with the Acting President. Our members are of the opinion that the last National Conference was convened in the interest of a few rather than all. We therefore recommend a more sincere and all inclusive national conference,” it said.

The statement which was titled: ‘Re-Three Months’ Notice to Ndigbo Resident in the North issued by the Coalition of Northern Youths’ said that the notice to Igbo was capable of distracting President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Following the notice issued by the Coalition of the Northern Youths in reaction to the Biafran agitation which has generated needless heating of the Nigerian polity capable of diverting the attention of the Buhari government, Arewa Liberation Movement (ALM), as stakeholder in nation building finds it imperative to make the following declarations:

1. ALM is not against the secession of Ndigbo from Nigeria. However, it preaches for a democratic approach towards the actualization of Biafra;

2. ALM calls for the immediate restructuring of the nation’s economy;

3. ALM is against the implementation of the 2014 Confab recommendations as agitated by the South-South leaders before October 1st, 2017 during their parley with the Acting President. Our members are of the opinion that the last National Conference was convened in the interest of a few rather than all. We therefore recommend a more sincere and all inclusive national conference;

4. That all religious organizations such as CAN and JNI should stay off politics of this country as their meddlesomeness in national issues is capable of and almost always, undermining the good intentions of government;

5. That the federal government should intensify efforts towards identifying and deliberating sincerely with leaders of the North with proven integrity. The last engagement of the presumed Northern leaders by the federal government was a sham. Those engaged were individuals with divergent personal interests not that of the North.

6. ALM supports in totality, the sincere intention of the Coalition of Northern Youths, but implores them to make wider consultations in their future engagements.

7. ALM takes strong exception to the position of the Kaduna state governor, Mal. Nasir El-Rufa’i on the directive to arrest and persecute members of the Coalition of Northern Youths, an attempt that will not achieve meaningful result as regards conflict resolutions.

8. ALM calls on the Northern governors to pay sincere attentions towards actualization of the Buhari government’s dreams on poverty reduction through agriculture, health, education and unemployment, and more importantly, security. It is our members’ candid observation that most of them have erformed below average that informs the unending problems in Northern Nigeria; and

9. That ALM neither supports nor encourages violence for the attainment of whatever political goal (s) or aspirations held by any group of people including secession by any section of the country.”