Stop Disparaging Kastina Emir, Atiku, Group Warns

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
A northern group under the aegis of Arewa Youths Grand Alliance (AYGA) has warned a section of youths in the region whom it said are disparaging key leaders including Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumin Usman, and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

It said the affected youths have formed the habit of using derogatory words against some of the northern leaders, adding that they have even described them as “political opportunists.”

In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by President of  AYGA Alhaji Inuwa Idris, the group cautioned the leader of the Arewa youth group who recently gave a quit notice to igbos in the North, Yarima Shattema, “to stop his brigandage and attack on our leaders forthwith because in a short while, we will open up his dossier to the world.”

He said as youths, they ought to be careful not to cultivate a culture of destruction and disrespect for community value, Idris said: “The outburst of this young man is to say the least incredibly callous, ridiculous and uncharitable, unbecoming of northern tradition where the youth hold leaders and constituted authority in high esteem.

“It is even more disturbing to note that the young man who signed the statement was only a puppet in the hands of fame-seekers – Mr Nastura Ashir Sharif and Yarima Shattema – who have since lost grip on their ill-fated “quit notice” to Igbos in the North and are now running helter-skelter blackmailing well meaning northerners into silence despite the looming danger their infamous action portends to the continuous corporate existence of Nigeria.”

The statement added that there is no community on earth that is built on disrespect to leaders and elders.
“We wish to reiterate to Sharif and his cohorts that they lack requisite moral ground to speak for and on behalf of the North because Sharif, an immigrant, who has Nigeria as his second home, cannot be allowed to set our dear country ablaze simply because he has another country to run back,” he said.