By Lola Idahosa, Kaduna
Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) has dissociated itself from a statement accredited to it by a fake Ahmad Ahmad Bashir claiming to be its publicity secretary .The Forum said the audio statement did not emanate from it .
The audio statement in Hausa called on northerners to attack and “to take revenge” on some former northern governors, a serving minister as well as an incumbent governor in one of the northern states.
The AYF said that they were shocked to receive this message they know nothing about, according to the statement, “we received with utter shock and disbelief the totally false, malicious, divisive and Devilish audio statements making the rounds in the social media.
“ The Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) is a non political, non religious, non ethnic, gender friendly, peace building, national unity and sustainable development driven Non Governmental organization that has spent the past 13 years in development work.
A press statement made available to Newsdiaryonline and signed by its National Director Public Affairs Bello Abdulhamid on monday said that it was ‘obvious that this sponsored religio-political audio statements is not the modus operandi of AYF and is not in its character but a feeble and spurious attempt to tarnish their hard earned achievements over the years.’
According to the statement, “The so called “Ahmad Ahmad Bashir” is not and has never been a member of the leadership of AYF at any of its structures from the National Executive Council (NEC) ,Zonal,states,local governments or wards. Also the leadership structure of AYF doesn’t have a Chairman or Publicity secretary.
“The AYF has over the years and currently been on a peace building and conflict mitigation project in the states of Kaduna, Taraba, Nasarawa and Bauchi states. Also ,we are training Youths against being used as agents of political thuggerry and indeed any form of violence.
“We therefore condemn in the strongest possible terms and called on all the youths of northern Nigeria to remain law abiding and be partners and positive agents of sustainable peace and national development.”
