Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), has threatened to stop the campaign of any Igbo presidential candidate in the North ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The group claimed a prominent Igbo group also made a similar threat not to allow any Northern presidential candidate holds a rally in any state in the South-East.
Isah Abubakar, President of NYCN, made the threat on Monday in Kaduna while reacting to claims by the Igbo socio-political and cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide opposing the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), presidential flag bearer who recently emerged its presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections.
Reacting to Atiku’s victory, the statement explained that Ohanaeze, had in a statement through its Secretary-General, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said the PDP presidential candidate would never become Nigeria’s president.
No Igbo person will be allowed to campaign and project Atiku’s presidential agenda in the region, PDP, the main opposition political party in Nigeria has reduced itself as a Northern party.”
According to him, Ohanaeze rejected Atiku’s candidacy, alleging that his emergence as PDP’s candidate was a plot by what he called “unpatriotic Northerners” against the Southern part of the country.
Comrade Isah Abubakar, however, lampooned Ohanaeze for attempting to stoke mutual hatred, and ethnic division among Nigerians, by coming out openly to condemn the transparent process that threw up Atiku as PDP’s flagbearer ahead of next year’s presidential election.
He alleged that Ohanaeze as a group, has turned itself into an agent of disunity, whose stock in trade, he added, is to incite Nigerians of varying ethnic, religious and political creeds against each other.
The President of the group urged South East elders to quickly call Ohanaeze to order and forestall the possibility of other regional ethnic groups issuing the same kind of violent threats to politicians from the South East for the corporate existence of the country.
He assured that if they do not do the needful, the youths in the North may be forced to also take drastic action against South East presidential candidates, saying, “We won’t allow them to set their foot on our land. Otherwise, the consequences will be grave. It is time radical and ethnic chauvinistic groups like the Ohanaeze are cut to size.”