Arewa Embarrassed as it Statement Supporting Heavy Military Operation in Niger Delta Resurface.

Today, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, is against the State of Emergency declared by the President in some Northern States. Last week the forum speaking through Anthony Sani had said “I do not believe state of emergency would be the panacea for the security challenges facing the nation. This is because it never addressed the ethno religious crises in Plateau State where it was applied for similar reasons. Also when state of emergency was applied in some local government areas in order to check the insecurity, it still did not deliver the needed peace.”

Sani “seriously” appealed to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) “and those opposed to amnesty and dialogue to please give the dialogue and amnesty a chance, considering that the use of force has failed in counter terrorism not only in other climes but also in Nigeria when President Yar’Adua used it in 2009. It has also failed to deliver the desired result in Bama.”

But in 2009 the same Arewa Consultative Forum supported heavy military action against Niger Delta militants who did not kill innocent civilians like Boko Haram is currently doing. Below is the statement that the ACF released in June of 2009;

“No responsible government can afford to fold its hands and watch a few misguided elements of its citizens hold the nation, including their own people and communities, to ransom.

More depressing, the will of the Armed Forces is being challenged when their members are killed in the course of their national assignment. In such circumstances, government cannot reasonably be expected to shirk in its responsibility of maintaining law and order. Hence the recent campaigns by the Operation Restore Hope by the military, aimed at ridding the Niger Delta region of criminal activities of the militants.

The campaigns must necessarily come with collateral damages, the JTF must maintain at its possible minimum.

This is how the current actions of the military in the Niger Delta should be viewed by all ‘fair-minded’ individuals with ‘patriotic courage.”

It would also be recalled that a member of the NEF and former governor of Old Kaduna State, Alhaji Lawal Kaita, had declared on October 3rd that "The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy".

* Source: Naija Pundit