The Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG has disclosed that its national leadership is in Sokoto State to engage stakeholders and initiate action against the escalated killings of northerners.
A statement by the CNG spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman on Monday, said the move is part of CNG’s mobilisation strategy to awaken every significant component of the northern society to the urgency of collective action to demand an end to the current spate of massacre of innocent northern Nigerian citizens.
“This has become necessary in order for the North to realise the futility of continuing to trust their lives to the care of the Muhammadu Buhari administration that has resigned itself to leave with an insurgency and banditry that exploit the huge vacuum in the political will and capacity of government to challenge them,” Suleiman said.
The CNG delegation, led by its Board of Trustees Chairman, Nastura Ashir Shariff has already met with notable religious and community leaders in the state and spearheaded prayer sessions for God’s intercession.
He lamented that virtually the entire North is today a battlefront, and northerners a hostage of Boko Haram/ ISWAP, of bandits, kidnappers and rapists who have taken over control of land boarders forests, highways and several communities across the region.
“Without a doubt, unless real, positive and collective survival action is taken urgently, the North risks being routed completely by criminals that understand that weak political will and corruption have weakened government’s resolve to fight them .
“It is regrettable that northerners who gave President Buhari the bulk of the votes to win the elections of 2015 and 2019 today bear the brunt of his bad or poor governance more than other Nigerians,” he said.
Suleiman explained that in 2015, Nigerians, particularly northern voters trusted Buhari to lead the nation through and out of its limitations, into a future in which we will live secure lives and pursue livelihoods in a united Nigeria whose human and material resources will be protected by leaders.
“Those elections were about the possibility that we could look to a future without Boko Haram; that our young will get good education, acquire skills and get jobs; that corruption will be arrested, contained and eliminated. Unfortunately, we end up at the receiving end of poor governance; of leadership that runs away from threats, and leaders who remember the people only when they need votes.
“Today, the North feels the pain of insecurity that escalates daily, and economy that deteriorates under leaders who are inept, insensitive, and weak and who governed poor people.
“With security, we can feed ourselves and feed the rest of Nigeria. But when communities are attacked, killed and destroyed daily, cost of inputs and life sustaining essentials become prohibitive, threats to lives limit productive capacities, people are abducted and forced to pay ransoms, their mobility limited in an environment infested by hostile and damaging political interests and opportunism, the economy of the North suffers and northerners compelled to act to salvage the region,” Suleiman said.
The CNG delegation, he said, is therefore expected to meet traditional rulers, youth, women and trade organisations to discuss constructive action to resist the ongoing rampage and government inaction and helplessness to challenge it or at least provide the minimum guarantee of commitment to securing the lives and properties of northerners.
“The team would also discuss strategies with stakeholders to resist the plan by the federal and State governments to impose another fresh and cruel regime of fuel price increase,” he said.
