Northern Youth Coalition Changes Mind On Igbo Quit Notice: Meets Igbo Groups

Northern Youth Coalition Changes Mind On Igbo Quit Notice: Meets Igbo Groups

The Northern Youth Coalition which on June 6 asked Igbos living in northern Nigeria to leave before October, has set up a 10-member joint committee with Igbo leaders in the region to facilitate peace between the two groups.

The committee was set up at a meeting in Kano on Friday held at the instance of the coalition.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of the group and representatives of Igbo groups from the 19 northern states.

Five persons from each side constituted the peace committee with a former Labour Party presidential aspirant, Isa Tijjani, asked to coordinate its activities.

According to both sides, at the end of their meeting on Friday, the committee was asked to chart a way for peaceful resolution of any dispute between the Northern youth and the Igbo.

Mr. Tijjani, who spoke with journalists shortly after the meeting, said the committee would ensure that peace is maintained between the Igbo and their hosts in the North.

He said the issues that prompted the youth group to issue the quit notice to the Igbo in the north would be ironed out by the committee.

The leaders of the Northern youth coalition, Yerima Shettima, and Nastura Shariff, said the group was willing to call off the quit notice.
Mr. Shettima, who also spoke to journalists after the meeting, said his group was pushed into issuing the widely-criticised quit notice by the insults being poured on northerners by the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, and his threat of war over which he said nobody cautioned Mr. Kanu.

“Our quit notice was necessitated by the fact that Kanu came to Nigeria with a dual citizenship threatening to plunge the country into war, openly calling for the break up the nation and yet nobody stopped or cautioned him,” he stated.

On his part, Mr. Shariff said all the Igbo leaders at the meeting disassociated themselves from the activities of the pro-Biafra agitators and said they want to live in peace with other Nigerians.

Boniface Ibekwe, who said he was the Eze Ndi Igbo North, and Chi Nwagu, the President-General of Igbo Delegates Assembly, also told journalists that Igbos stand for peace and a united Nigeria.

The Northern youth group had on Thursday insisted that they had not withdrawn their quit notice because of their concern that Mr. Kanu was unperturbed in his quest to break up Nigeria.