The Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG has frowned at reports that the Department of State Security Services (DSS), has invited the national president of the Nigeria Youth Union (NYU), Chinonso Obasi, alongside other youth leaders including the CNG in connection with a plan to disrupt official activities at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Categorically repudiating that it has been part of any such plans, the CNG in a statement signed by its spokesperson Abdul-Azeez Suleiman also said none of its officials has been invited by the DSS as reported.
A report by the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday said Youth groups, comprising of NYU, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), National Association of Colleges of Education Students (NACES), Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Northern Youths Initiative for Peace and Good Governance, have planned to disrupt peaceful activities at the airport on Wednesday to raise global awareness on the deplorable state of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in Nigeria but the DSS invitation has distorted the plan.
Reacting sharply to the report, Suleiman, CNG’S Spokesperson said his group is neither aware of any such plans, not ever contacted by the organizers whom it does not even know in the first place.
“The CNG has not been known to jump unto a flight without actually knowing its destination and hereby dispels the report as untrue and an attempt by some popularity seekers to misuse its public rating as the single strongest voice in the region.
“We have for long observed that a section of the national media has not been extremely careful in its reportage of circumstances surrounding the activities of the CNG and events that mostly affect the North.
“Yet, notwithstanding the well-known bias of this section of the media, CNG never made a habit of denouncing it at every occasion or on the slightest of breaches of decorum and etiquette. We were all along hoping that they would change to being more restrained in reporting on matters without resorting to overkill.
“We the CNG at this point, shall expect the proprietors of the various media outfits, along with their professional bodies to regulate themselves and abide by their own rules and etiquette regarding the dissemination and reportage of news.
“We restate here that editorial policies and restraints imposed by ordinary decency and sanity must not be abandoned by the media establishment for sensational and often biased reporting,” Suleiman warned.
