Organise Referendum, Support Igbo People To Leave Nigeria—Northern Groups

The Coalition of Northern Groups has asked the National Assembly to invoke the doctrine of necessity and organise a referendum to allow people of the South East to decide whether or not they want to remain in Nigeria.

It also urged the National Assembly to invite the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS to initiate the process of self-determination for Igbo people.

The Coalition also asked the lawmakers to suspend the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution, describing it as ill-timed considering the agitations for secession in the country.

The group, through its Spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday.

Suleiman said, “We demand the immediate suspension of the ongoing exercise for the review of the 1999 Constitution and to concentrate on the first priority of determining who and what actually constitutes Nigeria as a nation in the present circumstance in which the Igbo, by taking up arms against the Nigerian state, for the third time, have foreclosed every hope for the rest of us to continue coexisting with them as one nation.

“We further demand that the National Assembly should prevail on the Federal Government of Nigeria to invite the United Nations as well as the African Union and ECOWAS, to initiate the process of self-determination to mandate the Biafrans out of the Nigerian union by leveraging on the several relevant international treaties and conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.

“Today, everyone can see that the diabolical scheme planned and exhibited in the actions and clamours of IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra), supported morally and politically by the vast majority of the pliant and affrighted Igbo elites, politicians, traditional rulers, business persons, and the larger population of this ethnic group has pushed Nigeria to the precipice.”