Northern coalition to Buhari: Prove you have political will to protect Nigerians
Patrick Okohue
Following recent happenings that seem to threaten the very fundamental of Nigeria’s unity, a Northern Coalition Group, named Coalition of Northern Group (CNG), has thrown a challenge to the President Muhammadu Buhari led Government to show to the country that he has the capacity to safeguard the corporate existence of the nation.
“Coalition of Northern Group, demands from the Federal Government proofs of its capacity to protect citizens in all parts of the North as minimum evidence that it is serious about its responsibilities,” the group said.
Speaking, the group’s spokesman, AbdulAziz Suleiman, the Board of Trustees Chairman, Nastura Shariff and the Chairman of the Coalition, Balarabe Rufai, said on Sunday at a Press Conference at the Kano Press Center, that it is high time that Government showed its seriousness to protect the citizens.
They said, “we warn that failure to bring about an immediate end to the violence ravaging the North will confirm concerns of apparent system failure and that the region had been abandoned by the authorities in which communities will be left with the only option of taking steps to protect themselves.”
AbdulAziz Suleiman said the CNG demand that the Federal Government, Northern Governors and Legislators take immediate steps to reassert the rights of every Nigerian to practice the religion of his choice anywhere.
In this context, the group moves to obtain a comprehensive statistics of all existing private establishments in the North including Companies, Banking and Financial Institutions, Educational Institutions, Telecom agencies, hotels and recreational centers, Pension Companies, legal firms, health facilities, profit oriented NGO’S, Insurance and stock agencies with a view to seeking the review of their staff composition.
“By this, we mean henceforth, Northerners in their region would take 70 percent for states indigenes, 15 percent to catchment areas within north while 15 percent can go to any part.”
In the same vein, they asserted that they will approach all indigenous contractors to get preference in the award of all contracts from all governors in the region and money from the region should not be used to support any other Southern groups or persons.
