Coalition of Northern Groups gives Abia one week to fish out those who recently attacked northerners

PRESSURE association the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has called on the Abia State and the federal governments to arrest those responsible for the recent attacks on northerners in Umuahia within the next two weeks.

Across Nigeria, ethnic tension is growing by the minute with the presence of Fulani herdsmen and the ongoing trial of Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) leader Nnamdi Kanu, raising the political temperature across the southeast geo-political zone. Earlier this week, some northerners were reportedly attacked in Umuahia, the Abia State capital by an unidentified group.

CNG observed that the attack was another attempt by the southeast to cause greater conflict in the country, so has asked the Abia State government to act quickly. CNG spokesman, Abdulazeez Suleiman, said that the north would no longer tolerate unwarranted attacks on its people living as minorities in the southeast or any other part of the country.

In addition, the CNG said it had carefully studied the unfolding events with considerable restraint and maturity, explaining that it has on many occasions condoned and accommodated what it called several unreasonable and unacceptable actions that have been perpetrated against northerners in the southeast in particular. Furthermore, the CNG said it demands an immediate and comprehensive assessment of casualties and extent of damage inflicted on the innocent northerners in Abia State and appropriate compensation made to the victims.

Mr Suleiman said: “The recent attack in Abia has taken matters to a point whereby silence has become complicity and inaction is no longer an option in the face of unprovoked evictions, attacks and killings of northerners in various parts of the southeast. We are no longer prepared to turn the other cheek.”

He added that the north would no longer tolerate any further maltreatment of northerners resulting from the hate campaigns and propaganda being conducted by regional and ethnic agitators. Mr Suleiman reminded the Eastern Security Network , Ipob and their sponsors that they do not have monopoly of rascality and violence and that the patience of the north had reached its peak.