Northern leaders, including state governors and traditional rulers, on Monday met in Kaduna, where they condemned #EndSARS protests, according to reports.
In a communiqué issued after the meeting and read by the Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, alleged that separatists hijacked the #EndSARS protests and that the demonstrators were targeting regime change.
Reading the communiqué issued by the northern leaders, Lalong stated, “The meeting rejects and condemns the subversive actions of the #EndSARS protests. The agitations and other change-regime actions outside the ballot box soon took advantage of the peaceful protests to push for their separatist agenda. The meeting endorses the indivisibility, indissolubility and oneness of the nation.”
But, condemning the northern leaders, the acting Secretary General and National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, said that those trying to give #EndSARS protest against police brutality, extrajudicial killings and extortion, ethnic and sentimental colorations would fail completely.
Also, the Middle Belt Forum rejected positions of the northern governors and traditional rulers on Nigeria’s unity and EndSARS protests saying they were on their own.
According to him, this shows that the northern governors and traditional rulers are together with the President in the mess going on in the country.
And the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, said: “The unity of Nigeria is negotiable and we must negotiate it to have a functioning country. If we continue this Arewa song, the country will collapse.
“#EndSARS was a revolt and not for regime change. It is only those fixated only on their ruling of Nigeria at all costs without a thought for its health that would only be talking of a regime in the midst of all we are going through.”