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From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
The Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), yesterday, said the North would give an equal match to the threat to disrupt the presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubarkar, in the South East allegedly issued by Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
The group vowed to disrupt campaigns of Igbo presidential candidates in the North in retaliation if the statement through the Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, is carried out ahead of the 2023 polls.
“Reacting to Atiku’s victory, Ohanaeze, had, in a statement through Isiguzoro, said the PDP presidential candidate would never become Nigeria’s president.
“The group also made it clear that no Igbo person would be allowed to campaign and project Atiku’s presidential agenda in the region, describing the PDP, which is the main opposition political party in Nigeria as having been reduced to a northern party.
“Ohanaeze rejected Atiku’s candidacy, alleging that his emergence as PDP’s candidate was a plot by unpatriotic northerners against the southern part of the country.
President of NYCN, Isah Abubakar, in a statement, expressed concern that Igbo could oppose Atiku and PDP, the platform via which the former vice president recently emerged as presidential candidate.
“We are concerned that a group like Ohanaeze is attempting to stock mutual hatred, and ethnic division among Nigerians by coming out openly to condemn the transparent process that threw up Atiku as PDP’s flag-bearer ahead of next year’s presidential election.
“Ohaneze, as a group, has turned itself into an agent of disunity whose stock in trade is to incite Nigerians of varying ethnic, religious and political creeds against one another.
“We, therefore, urged South East elders to call Ohanaeze to order to forestall the possibility of other regional ethnic groups issuing the same kind of violent threats to politicians from the South East,” he said.
