The forum also alleged that the governors, who swore to protect the constitution and defend the unity and integrity of Nigeria, have surrendered to secessionists.
Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of NEF, in a statement berated Southern leaders over the ban on open grazing, saying they were making desperate but futile attempt to split the North.
“It is now clear that elected people who swore to protect the constitution and protect the unity and integrity of Nigeria have decided to surrender to deeply divisive or out rightly irredentist and secessionist tendencies and movements.
“Governors are building ethnic monsters and hiding behind them to whip up sentiments in a crude attempt to extract concessions no one is in a position to give or guarantee. A desperate but futile attempt is being made to split the North along lines that suit people who ignore its complexities and plurality when it is convenient to lump all Northerners and submit them to humiliation or attacks.
“In the South East, governors are yielding their political turf and mandates to secessionists, criminals and subversives who think they can exterminate federal presence and Northerners from the region, and achieve dubious political goals related to 2023, or break away from the country.
“In the South West, elected leaders and pampered ethnic bullies are closing ranks to provide a front that apes the do-what-we-want-or-we-leave-the-country strategy of the marginalized leaders of the South East.
“The South South is squeezed between fear and uncertainty, and its leaders are gambling that they can benefit from further weakening the federal administration and the North if it rides along with the rest of the South.
