The Coalition of Norther Groups, CNG, has described the quit notice issued by Ondo governor, Rotimi Akeredolu and the attack by some Yoruba youths on Fulani herdsmen in Oyo as a grand design to incapacitate the North economically.
The group, in an interim response signed by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman and made available to ASHENEWS on Saturday, said it would meet to come up with a definite position.
According to Suleiman, the group which said expected the attack to have come from Ondo following governor Akeredolu’s quit notice, will first consider recalling northern communities that are resident in the South, to return home.
“We are considering a number of options. We expected the attack from Ondo following Akeredolu’s directive. But now it’s coming from Oyo.
“As a first step, we are considering recalling all Northern communities in the south back home safely before considering the next move,” the statement reads.
The group also warned those that are tickling violence of the adverse effect of their act.
“We however warn the instigators of this violence to note that we certainly know how to repay coin for coin.
“We certainly don’t consider it an isolated incident but linked to a grand design to destabilize Nigeria and in particular bring the North to its knees by targeting a major component of its population, the Fulani and their livestock assets.
“It is no longer in doubt that for too long, enemies of the North both foreign and local have worked strenuously to ensure that the region remains backward, divided, weak, confused and bewildered by myriads of challenges and problems.
“Today, every one can see a clear pattern drawn from the strategies employed to achieve these results; namely the diminishing of the Northern viability and in particular, bringing the Hausa/Fulani population down by direct annihilation or political and economic incapacitating,” the statement reads.
The CNG alleged that the act by the South is perpetrated with the connivance of some northern leaders as well as “negligence and the lack of neutrality and fairness of the federal authorities.
“Unfortunately, this conspiracy is actively perpetrated with the connivance of some leaders from the North and accommodated by the cowardice of those that present themselves as northern political leaders.
“It is also a situation that feeds on the negligence and the lack of neutrality and fairness of the federal authorities.
“Akeredolu and other southern leaders are only playing the script of a wider clandestine plot that has its roots and pattern in history.
“We wonder how the Presidency and the National Assembly would have reacted, were the North to make such against other tribes and people that are non-indigenous but live and flourish in the North and actually carry out the threat.
“No matter through which lenses we look therefore, we only see in this fast-phased agenda a manifestation of a system that tends to deploy a warped application of the law solely for the protection of a certain category of citizens and endangering others.
“This manifestation of gross inequity is also one that portends the danger of even more grave conflicts,” the group further stated.
