Following the 3-months ultimatum handed down by a Coalition of Northern Youth Groups, NYC, and the Arewa Youth, Nigerian lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana has slammed the President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, Shettima Yerima, for his quit ultimatum.
Femi Falana while speaking in Abuja on Thursday noted that Shettima Yerima, the mastermind behind the eviction call lives in Lagos but has caused trouble in the north and for the Igbo living in the region.
Falana said during a press conference organised by the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, “please, information is very crucial to all of us and I want to say this publicly; the man who is giving quit notice does not live in the north, he lives in Lagos.”
He added: “Yerima lives in Lagos, he is a Lagos man. So to stay in Lagos and be giving quit notice is not the answer.”
Urging Nigerians to remain calm and desist from following instructions laid down by those whose goal is to divide the country, Falana said: “We have to look at those things that tie us together and not those that the ruling class are using to divide our people.”
Falana further went down the memory lane as he cited the killing of four students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria by the police on May 26, 1986.
The killing which he disclosed occurred during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida, a former military president, was said to have been stopped when the late Chima Ubani, an Igbo student, led a protest against the killing at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
He further added that the comments by Ango Abdullahi, the then Vice Chancellor of the university, that only four students were killed, angered Nigerians and sparked protest across campuses of universities in the country.
He added: “The boy who led that protest was late Chima Ubani. What happened? The state did not like the fact that there was a national protest against the killing of students of ABU. What did the government do?
“They didn’t arrest students in the north; they didn’t arrest people who were demonstrating in the west, the Babangida regime went for Chima Ubani and arraigned him and eight of his colleagues under the military decree that required that they were sentenced to death.”
He continued: “I left Lagos and went to Enugu to defend those men. We got them freed. When they returned to campus, the vice chancellor expelled them; again, I went to court and got them.
“This is important, a Hausa vice chancellor invited police and they killed young Hausa people, four of them and Nigerians protested. An Igbo man led that protest in the east against injustice. A Yoruba lawyer in the west went to free them; there are lawyers in the east. We have to look at those things that tie us together and not those that the ruling class is using to divide our people.”