The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), says insurgents, including Boko Haram, ISWAP and bandits had turned northern Nigeria to operating group for their activities.
It also said that addressing the fundamentals of the Nigeria’s national existence, preserving citizen’s lives and checkmating the unprecedented plunder and deteriorating standards of living by government, had become a visible challenge.
According to a statement by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman and made available to Newsdiaryonline on Sunday said, “Virtually, the entire North is turning into a battlefront, and held hostage by Boko Haram and marauding bandits, with the continuing of killings in Borno, Yobe, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kaduna, and Taraba states in addition to the threat of kidnapping, all over the North”
The group called on the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), to summon an urgent meeting of all stakeholders, including credible sections of the civil society, intellectuals, the politicians, the professionals, cultural and religious leaders and elders to:
“Agree on definite conclusions to halt the continuation of decay and destruction of the North and its people.
“Define practical measures to save a nation being critically endangered by leaders who fail to lead with justice and sensitivity.
“Articulate a representation to alert the international community and relevant global bodies and agencies including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court as to where responsibility shall ultimately lie for the ongoing mass massacre of northerners.
“Impress on Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina state the imperative of looking into widespread suspicions of compromise by some top officials of his government to at least show a minimum proof of his seriousness to preserve the lives of the people entrusted in him,” it suggested.
CNG further called the attention of northerners particularly those in the front line of these killings to the reality that nowhere in human civilization has human liberty been actually upheld without struggling for it.
“In the light of this, we urge all northerners on the futility of docility, in a situation such as this that threatens their collective existence.
“There is certainly no gain in staking people’s lives in leaders riding on the back of the most gratuitous insults to justice and fairness encased in the crude cover of crass political opportunism and ineptitude.
“We must all come together and demand an immediate end to these killings and an enduring guarantee for improving our security and the quality of our lives in future.
“With the inception of the current dispensation in the last five years, Nigeria, in particular the North, has had the worst set of incompetent, ineffective, unfocused and generally unwilling leaders manning all the arms and levels of governance,” CNG further stated.
