A northern group, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum on Thursday warned the Governor of Ondo State and Chairman, Southern Governors’ Forum, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, over alleged harassment of northerners by Amotekun in the state.
A statement by the National President of the AYCF, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, issued in Kaduna, strongly cautioned the governor against “condoning the latest round of harassment of Northerners in the state.”
Shettima knocked the governor for “looking the other way while Northerners get purportedly arrested by armed militia disguised as Amotekun on trumped up charges.”
The AYCF boss condemned in strong terms the activities of “armed gangs masquerading as security agents in a nation where the police, the DSS, NSCDC and others are the only recognized enforcers of law and order.”
He said: “We wish to sound a strong note of warning that the Ondo State Government should stop turning a blind eye to the attack on innocent Nigerians from the North who are doing legitimate business in the state.
“If the people of Northern Nigeria had taken the same path of extra judicial harassment by now, no indigene of Ondo State would have been living and doing business in the region.
“We have had enough of this unbridled harassment and intimidation of Northerners in Ondo State and we are beginning to see that the disposition of the state governor is what has emboldened extra-judicial militia outfits to make innocent Northerners in Ondo the butt of shameful intimidation.”
Reacting, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Security Matters, Alhaji Jimoh Dojumo, said the northern youths were misinterpreting the good intention that the governor had for the country, insisting that Akeredolu never harassed law-abiding residents of the state in any way .
Dojumo who described Akeredolu as a man who always fought for togetherness of the country, urged the AYCF to talk to their fellow northerners, particularly, some Fulani herdsmen not to be constituting nuisance in the state .
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