Northern elders responsible for North’s problems – Arewa youths

Northern youths on Thursday criticised their elders over what they described as calls for the nation’s Presidency to return to the region in 2015.


The youth, under the aegis of the Arewa Peoples Patriotic Front, said rather than calling for Presidency to return to the North, the elders should saddle themselves with the responsibility of putting their house in order.

National Chairman, APPF, Mr. Sunday Ibrahim, while addressing a press conference in Kaduna on Thursday, accused the elders for being responsible of the sundry problems confronting the region.

He said, “Prof. Ango Abdullahi and his team demanded that power must return to the North in 2015, but we want to know which of the North he is referring to. Not long ago, he was in this country when we were told that there were two norths (sic.); the North and the Core North. We have seen and are still seeing the effect of that balkanisation of the North.”

The coalition of organisations in the North – the Arewa Consultative Forum, Northern Elders’ Forum, Arewa Reawakening Forum, Arewa Research and Development Project, Northern Union and the Code Group – led by a former Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, had penultimate Tuesday said the Presidency must return to the region in 2015.

Abdullahi, who spoke on behalf of the group, had said, “The North is determined and is insistent that the leadership of the country will rotate to it in 2015, and I am making that very clear to you. On behalf of all of us—ACF is in front (because is has been the oldest group), and the Middle Belt Forum and our other groups that have been very active and strong; all of us are likely to have this very tough and common agenda.”