Nigerians Agitated over Growing Tension in Country, Group Tells FG

Nigerians Agitated over Growing Tension in Country, Group Tells FG

By John Shiklam

The Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) has urged the federal government to take urgent steps to tackle the growing tension causing fears across the country.

In a statement issued yesterday in Kaduna, the National President of the forum, Mr. Ibrahim Gujungu, said many Nigerians across the country are agitated as a result of the prevailing pathetic situation in Nigeria.

He said the “forum is worried by the prevailing situation and rising tension across the country, precipitated by the quit notice given to Fulani herdsmen by the Ondo state Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and the actions that had trailed that incident.

“Nigeria is fast drifting, and action must be taken immediately to address the issues.”

The forum lamented that the situation in “the country has continued to deteriorate with each region looking within and resorting to self-help as if the federal government does not exist.

“It is in view of this that the AYF is calling on the federal government to immediately act on behalf of Nigerians who voted it to power, to prevent a repeat of civil war in the country.

“This is the time for the government to show leadership, work with other stakeholders to bring hope, peace and unity among Nigerians.

“AYF believes that this can only be achieved if the government make haste in dealing with the underlining issues of insecurity, poverty, deprivation and endemic unemployment ravaging the people.”

The statement further called for synergy between the federal and the state governments to tackle the problems bedeviling the country.

According to the statement, “State governors should be told that the government inability to clamp down on criminals should not be an avenue to malign an ethnic group or even a group of people.

“Criminals should be treated as criminals; arrested and made to face the full wrought of the law anywhere they reside or commit crime in Nigeria.”

It, however, commended the federal government for appointing new service chiefs, and urged them to hit the ground running.

“The new service chiefs should immediately come up with new agenda on how to end the insurgency in the North-east region, banditry in the Northwest and the general insecurity across the country,” the statement noted.

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