Sultan of Sokoto and Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations oppose Shege Ka Fasa

SULTAN of Sokoto Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar and the Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations have both distanced themselves from the recently-created Shege Ka Fasa outfit launched by the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) top counter Amotekun.

Last month, the six state governors in the southwest geo-political zone launched the regional security initiative Amotekun, to combat growing insecurity in the area. Seeing it as an ethnic threat, the CNG, which had given the governors an ultimatum to dissolve the body, decided to launch its own rival association known as Shege Ka Fasa in Kaduna on Wednesday.

CNG has appealed to state governors across northern Nigeria to approve their creation but so far, it had been ignored. Speaking at a northern security meeting in Kaduna yesterday, the sultan said elders were the problems of the region for allowing youths take over leadership from them.

He said: “I saw it on the television and the media gave them attention. Now, the elders allowed these youths to go forward, so, the elites are our problems and the elders are our problems.

If the elders don’t take the lead, the youth will do whatever they like and think they are right, so you have to caution these youths by giving them good leadership. Now, they have launched their own security outfit, calling it, Shege Ka Fasa, meaning what?

“So, I want to call on northern elders to caution them and don’t allow these youths to take over leadership from you. You have to reach out to everybody no matter how low the person is and I think we need to take the bull by the horns and not allow the youths take over responsibility.”

He added that the orphans in northern Nigeria were over 50,000 and may turn out to be terrorists if not taken care of. According to the sultan, several recommendations have been made but have not been implemented and as they remain unimplemented, the region will continue to suffer the consequences.

Agreeing with the sultan, the Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations, said they were not contacted by the conveners of Shege Ka Fasa. Murtala Abubakar, group's leader said his organisation was not contacted by the initiator of the operation, so are not a party to it.

He added: “As you may be aware we are working with patriotic pan-northern groups like the Arewa Research and Development Project, the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation and a host of other in a proactive way to proffer intellectual and pragmatic solutions to many challenges confronting us as a region.

“The so-called Shege Ka Fasa was rather an emotive response to a serious security challenge our region is currently facing. Today, the north, in a collaborative way with critical stakeholders representing the political class like the governor of Katsina State, the sultan and other civil society groups inaugurated a security monitoring committee to help bring to an end the serious security challenge facing us.”

Yakubu Dogara, the former speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, added that northern Nigeria has now become the epicentre and theatre of violence and stressed the urgent need to find a lasting solution to the situation. He said that Nigeria has suffered from Islamic State of West Africa led by Albarnawi, Boko Haram led by Shekau and Ansaru insurgency to farmers/herders conflict, banditry, kidnapping, ethno-religious conflicts and cattle rustling among several others.