Northerners are victims of flawed constitution, stop attacking us, Arewa Youths tell Southern leaders

President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Shettima Yerima, has warned southern leaders to stop attacking and casting aspersions on the Northern region, saying Northerners are also victims of a flawed constitution.

Yerima spoke in Lagos on Monday during the national dialogue on the constitutional future of Nigeria in Honour of a renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, organised by the Patriots (A Pan Nigerian Group of Eminent National Leaders of Thought) with the theme, “Lawful Procedures for Actualising a People’s Constitution for Nigeria.”

He said it was worrisome that Southern leaders always cast aspersions on the North at every forum advocating for a change of the present 1999 constitution as if the North is not part of the struggle.

Yerima stated that many Northerners have always been in the trenches calling for the decentralisation of power which is highly concentrated in the centre.

He specifically told Baba Ayo Adebanjo, leader of the Afenifere, the Pan-Yoruba sociocultural group and other Southern leaders to desist because some of them are products of struggle.

Yerima said, “I get worried when leaders we are looking up to look at the entire North and cast aspersions on them, I get worried. Because the truth of the matter is that we are more victims of this system than some of you in the Southern part of this country but yet if an issue of this nature comes up, the entire North would be looked at and cast aspersions on. This is not right.

“Some of us grew in your midst, we are your students, you mentored us, we were parts of the struggle. So when you don’t look at people like us and you cast aspersions, to an extent, you are saying we are stupid and foolish, that is what we feel. We are all victims. I have always been an advocate of this struggle, I have always been an advocate of total decentralization of this system.

“We cannot get it right if we continue to manage the centre as it is today. So I am one of those who believe that we need to decentralize the central government to make the centre less attractive.

“So for over two decades, we have been in the struggle. So I am of the view or my advice is that sometime if leaders want to talk, let them specifically make mention of individuals who have bastardised the system rather than generalizing it.

“Great Nigerian people, I am of the view that something is wrong and I believe in it. We cannot manage this constitution.”