Calling for secession is requesting for war, ACF tells separatists

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) on Monday said anyone calling for secession is requesting for war which may be brutal than the Nigerian civil war fought from 1967 to 1970.

In the Southern part of the country, non-state actors are leading the growing calls for secession against the Nigerian State.

While Nnamdi Kanu leads the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) seeking the restoration of the defunct Biafra Republic comprising of the South-East and South-South geo-political zones, his counterpart in the South-West region, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, is canvassing for the breakaway of the Yoruba nation to form Oduduwa Republic.

Other non-state actors, though oppose secession, are calling for the restructuring of the country, saying the current structure is imbalance and places the North in a better position against the South, a position the ACF disagrees with saying the current state of affairs has nothing wrong with it.

Emmanuel Yawe, spokesman of the Northern group, said the next attempt to balkanize the nation will be fiercely resisted and might be brutal than the previous attempt that lasted for thirty months with over three millions casualty recorded on the side of the former eastern region.

“There is no way any part of Nigeria will secede without a civil war,” Mr Yawe told Sahara Reporters. “We are so integrated that it is impossible for us to sit at a conference table and allow each part to go their ways, it’s not possible, it’s not a tea party, there will be war.

“If any part of Nigeria wants to secede, there will be war, maybe even more serious war than what we had before between 1967 and 1970. So, if anyone is calling for secession, he’s calling for war.

“And we in the North fought the war to keep this country together, so it will be a contradiction for those of us who tried to stop this country from breaking up to now be engaging in activities that will break this country; we don’t want this country to break up. Nigeria is a great country as it is. We have problems but those problems are not enough for us to break up.

“We believe these problems can be remedied and these problems will only be multiplied if we go into war. We love the country. We don’t like what some people are doing with the country but for us to have come from the biggest black nation on earth, it is an honour and we should try to preserve this honour.

“We should try to see how we can use the resources we have to build a great world power. The rest of Africa is looking up to us and they feel sad when we behave as if we want to break up the country they all look up to. We don’t want the country to break up. It is better the way it is, even with all the problems,” he added.