The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum has warned South East Governors to stop indiscriminately arresting Northerners. The call comes after busloads of Northerners were arrested by the army in Abia state and tagged as Boko Haram by the media.
Meanwhile only one of those individuals arrested has been identified as a Boko Haram kingpin.
President of AYCF, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, told The PUNCH, “This gives us a lot of worry. Are these South-East governors or whoever is at the helms of affairs doing this in the interest of this country or to cause more hatred for our people, so that the country will break up?
“Those who are acting out this script of disintegration are not helping this country, especially at this challenging period.
“We are not in support of Boko Haram or their bomb attacks. We are saying that innocent citizens should not suffer because some evil-minded people come from their area. I can tell you that those who were arrested in Abia are not Boko Haram members.
“We had a case where about 500 people arrested in Lagos. I intervened and on getting to the force headquarters, we discovered that most of them were innocent and they were released.
“We are not saying security agencies should not do their work, but they should not go about arresting hundreds of people just because they are looking for one or two suspects.”
In a related development, the Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade has said one of those arrested has been identified as a Boko Haram sponsor.
He said,in an emailed statement, “A terror kingpin in the list of wanted terrorists of security forces in Nigeria has been detected in the ongoing screening of the 486 suspects nabbed while travelling in over 33 Toyota Hiace Hummer buses at night along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway last Sunday.
“So far, other security agencies, including the para-military agencies have joined the screening exercise to ascertain the status of the remaining suspects.
“Those identified as possible security risk or illegal immigrants are expected to be identified for further action.
“The identified terror kingpin has been taken into custody. Further development will be communicated to you in due course.”
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