The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has warned politicians and interest groups from the Southern part of Nigeria to desist from issuing threats and ultimatum should the North fail to concede the 2023 Presidency to the South.
Murtala Aliyu, Secretary-General of ACF, in a statement made available to DAILY POST in Kaduna, insisted that the North producing the next president of the country should not unsettle the South.
He explained, “Gone are the days when Northerners felt blackmailed and intimidated by threats of restructuring, secession, break up or break down of Nigeria.”
The Secretary-General noted that the North does not seek to dominate any part of the country, stressing that it would not submit itself to be relegated to serfdom.
ACF explained that those issuing ultimatums were to be pitied, knowing that they knew not what they were doing.
The statement added that they owned no patent nor monopoly of the art or science of ultimatums.
The statement titled, “Enough of the blackmail”, stated that Southerners do not contest the fact that the North has 78 percent of the landmass of Nigeria, but refused to accept that the North has over 55 percent of the population of Nigeria.
It added that the voting population in the Northwest region of the North alone is bigger than those of the South-East and South-South combined, stressing “the South would never acknowledge the fact that all the beef, all the tomatoes, the onions, the beans, etc. consumed in the South are produced in the North.”
“They contest every fact, every principle, including those that formed the basis of our union, such as our federation, our system of administration, our democracy, among others,” the statement explained.
ACF pointed out that as the country inched towards the 2023 elections, it came as no surprise that some Southern politicians were giving their Northern counterparts an ultimatum.
The statement noted that Nigeria’s Fourth Democratic Republic is about 22 years old, of which the North ruled for only 10 years.
It observed that in-spite of this, some southern politicians were furious, issuing dare warnings against the election of any Northerner as president.
It said that it had to be stated clearly and for the avoidance of any doubt that the North was not and had never been opposed to the election of any Nigerian from any part of the country as President.
It warned that anything that would be done to achieve that must be according to the law and democratic principles.
