Buhari warns separatists to end unrest
Nigerian leader returns from leave
NIGERIA’S President Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday he would stop separatist activists spreading discord, after returning from his second stint of medical leave this year.
Buhari, looking thin but sounding stronger than his last broadcast in June, said he had been troubled by social media posts calling for splits in a country made up of a mostly Muslim north and a Christian south.
Since Buhari travelled to London for treatment of an unspecified condition on May 7, campaign groups have stepped up calls for a separate south-eastern state known as Biafra, evoking memories of a conflict there that killed hundreds of thousands in the 1960s.
Militants and community groups have also called for the independence of the restive southern Niger Delta oil hub, saying it should receive a greater share of Nigeria’s energy wealth.
Islamist Boko Haram militants are fighting for a separate caliphate in the north-east.
Buhari said that Nigeria’s unity has been established and is not negotiable as every Nigerian has the right to live and pursue his business anywhere in the country, without hindrance.
Buhari warned his administration would not allow “irresponsible elements to start trouble and when things get bad they run away and saddle others with the responsibility of bringing back order, if necessary with their blood”.
The Nigerian leader, who returned to Abuja on Saturday after three months in London for medical treatment, said: “Nigerians are robust and lively in discussing their affairs, but I was distressed to notice that some of the comments, especially in the social media have crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective existence as a nation.
“This is not to deny that there are legitimate concerns. Every group has a grievance. But the beauty and attraction of a federation is that it allows different groups to air their grievances and work out a mode of co-existence,” Buhari said.
The National Assembly and the National Council of State are the legitimate, appropriate bodies for such discussions, he said. “The national consensus is that it is better to live together than to live apart.”
Agitation for self-determination has increased among Nigeria’s three major ethnic groups and more than 300 minority ones in the president’s absence.
A political grouping in the country’s north, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, recently warned members of the Igbos ethnic group which hails from the south-east that they should leave the north by October.
The Indigenous People of Biafra led by Nnamdi Kanu, who was recently released from jail, has also agitated for a separate nation. Kanu recently ordered a boycott of a governorship election in south-eastern Anambra state and his group disrupted campaign rallies by the incumbent.
In addition, the O’odua Nationalist Coalition in south-west Nigeria recently joined in the agitation for self-determination and sovereignty. The coalition made up of 18 pan-Yoruba groups called on ethnic Yorubas “to prepare for their own sovereign nation in the face of the lingering problems and conflict built around the national question that has stunted the growth of Nigeria for over a century”.
Buhari told security agencies to avoid becoming complacent. “We are going to reinforce and reinvigorate the fight not only against elements of Boko Haram, which are attempting a new series of attacks on soft targets, (but also against) kidnappings, farmers versus herdsmen clashes, (and) ethnic violence fuelled by political mischief makers.”
He appealed to Nigerians to come together to face economic, security, political and socio-cultural challenges and foster lasting peace among themselves.–