By Tina George, Minna
A group of northern youths under the aegis of True Northern Youths and Elites has written an open letter to the Northern Elders Forum, Arewa Consultative Forum, Northern Youths Coalition and other regional groups asking them to stop misrepresenting them.
The Open letter was signed by the National Secretary of the Group, Mohammed Hassan Abuja and made available to newsmen Wednesday.
According to the letter titled, ‘Stop speaking on our behalf and stop misrepresenting our interest’, the group expressed disappointment over the stand taken by the Northern Elders and leaders.
It lamented that those they regard as the sole protectors of the northern heritage and interest had displayed their weakness to respond to the bashing that the region receives these days.
“We, The True Northern Youths and Elites, reject the disappointing and disheartening statement by the northern groups, calling on the fulani herdsmen back to the north, it shows a sincere sign of weakness and cowardliness. Its absurd and unreasonable. We accept the idea of serving people their own medicine. As long as they occupy our lands we will occupy theirs. Tits for Tats.
“We, the northerners are so disappointed, baffled, irritated and ashamed to call these groups or people as the sole protectors of our northern heritage and interest. The southern Governors released a joint and signed statement to ban the fulani herders from moving their cattle by foot but only by using any other means necessary.
“Our northern so called leaders are so “WEAK” to even retaliate with bare words. Why Cant the Northern Governors and Traditional Rulers place a heavy tax and embargo on our southern alies that carry-out their business activities and resides in the north?.
“For your information my dear “Elders and Leaders”, you cannot achieve a peaceful negotiation when you bring a pen and a paper to the negotiating table while your counterpart brought an RPG or AK-47 to the table. You can only “fight fire with fire”.
According to the group, “when did the North become weak? When did Northerners become cowards? When did Northerners agree to be oppressed? When did Northern interest become political interest? When did Northern interest become personal interest? when did northern territory become middle belt? when did Benue become anti northern state?
“When did our traditional rulers neglect our interest? When did the north become a refuse dump for everyone to spit on? When did north become parasites? when did north agree to be underdeveloped? when did north become the victims? when did our northern security deteriorate to the present state? when did we become beggars for peaceful coexistence?”
The youths called on the Southern elders to calm their youths to order as they would no longer tolerate any detroriating comments about the north.
“Northerners have tolerated enough selfish, unimaginable and intolerable utterances from their southern counterpart. Most of these youths sponsored from the south that see it fit to open their mouth and insult north and the northerners at any given time, should be called to order by their elders or we will start retaliating back. “
The youths appealed to the Northern elders and leaders to stop being blinded by their political and leadership tussle and stand right for the north and northerners.
“Believe you me, Nigeria is a colonial experiment gone wrong. The security situation in the north has highly deteriorated due to the negligence of our selfish, private jet shuttling, dollar and naira collecting governors.
“Any idea or program initiated nationally that will benefit the north is perceived as anti-south agenda, and the full wrath of the southern media houses will be placed on it until they kill that initiative either by using tribal, regional or religious sentiments.
“Stop lying to yourselves and stop lying to us, please take a single dose of reality to clear your vision and get your priority straight. North and South are not one and can never be one even in the next life. We are socially, economically, religiously, culturally and ethnically different.”
