Barely 24 hours after a coalition of Northern Groups launches the Arewa
version of Amotekun code-named Shege Ka Fasa, Umbrella body of Arewa
youth groups, the joint action committee of northern youth associations,
has distanced itself from the proposed security outfit.
It also
linked the conveners of SHEGE KA FASA to some northern elders, alleging
they were behind the move to floating the security outfit with a
proposed operational headquarters in Kaduna, defunct capital of Northern
Nigeria.
Speaking in an interview, Murtala Abubakar, leader of
the joint action committee of northern youth associations said their
organization was not contacted by the initiator of the operation. So we
are not a party to it.
“As you may be aware we are working with
patriotic pan northern groups like ARDP, SABMF and host of other in a
proactive way in proffer intellectual and pragmatic solutions to many
challenges confronting us as a region.”
“The so-called launch of
operations ‘Shege Ka Fasa’ was rather an emotive response to a serious
security challenge our region is currently facing.
“Today, the
north, through the collaborative way with critical stakeholders
representing the political class was the governor of Katsina State, the
sultan represented the traditional institution and other civil society
groups inaugurated a security monitoring committee to help bring to an
end the serious security challenge facing us,” he said.
Shege Ka
Fasa, a security outfit created by the Coalition of Northern Groups,
CNG, was launched on Wednesday to operate as the northern regional
security outfit similar to Amotekun.
The CNG said the measures
for setting up the outfit among others, were to complement the police,
military, and security efforts, to detect, expose and defeat criminals.
In a related development,
Immediate past Speaker of the House of
Representatives Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, yesterday averred that the North
has now become the epicentre and theatre of violence and stressed the
urgent need to find a lasting solution to the situation.
Honourable
Dogara spoke at a Northern Security meeting convened by the Arewa
Research and Development Project (ARDP) to inaugurate the Northern
security monitoring committee. He said that Nigeria has suffered from
ISWAP led by Albarnawi, Boko Haram led by Shekau and Ansaru insurgency
to farmers/herders conflict, banditry, kidnapping, ethnoreligious
conflicts, cattle rustling among several others.
According to
Dogara who was the Chairman of the meeting,” We are confronted with a
crisis that is unparalleled in our history. The death spiral appears
unstoppable. Increasingly, it is becoming harder and harder to
distinguish us from our enemies.
“There was no shortage of early
warning signs and as a matter of fact, our philosophers such as the late
Sa’adu Zungur of blessed memory had warned that this dystopian era was
fast approaching but we ignored all. We are now paying for our
collective negligence”.
He said the North is now in the.grip of
what Soren Kierkegaard called “Sickness unto death” the numbing of the
soul by despair that leads to moral and physical debasement. It has
become a society that is driven at its very core by death instinct. The
instinct to annihilate and destroy rather than nurture and create.”
He
further observed that our economic debris has become too conspicuous to
be ignored, adding that, “As it is, we are now trapped in a prison of
mirrors, where revealed lies are answered with new lies. With all these,
it is like our slow-motion walk to self Apocalypse is assured”.
Hon
Dogara lamented that of the 19 northern states and FCT, only Kwara
State and the FCT are relatively peaceful or have the lowest Raye of
insecurity but all the other 18 states are inflamed by one form of
violence or the other, stressing that we are all guilty of waiting for
the government to solve all the problems.
He said the real
problem facing the country is the failure to provide leadership and
organize a society that works for all. “A peaceful and orderly Northern
Nigeria then was more engaged in the pursuit of justice rather than the
pursuit for an order. In tackling these problems, we must realise that
guns do not kill and killing the violent does not necessarily bring
peace except the peace of the grave.
“Violence is taking roots
because our leadership model has been exposed as a lie, an empty
ideology used to satiate greed instead of addressing social inequality
and injustice.
“We are running out of time, it is crystal clear
that the North cannot withstand the kind of contradictions that exist
now. The North is on fire ignited by us either by our actions or by what
we permit or allow. Those who truly love the North must now come out
and accept responsibility and begin the.salvage mission bearing in mind
Professor Andrew Haruna’s warning ‘That the North was handed over to us
in one place, we must therefore not pass it to our children in pieces ”
he stated.