Following the 30-day ultimatum issued by some Northern youths mandating President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately implement the establishment of the RUGA settlement policy in disregard of the will of the people, it has been described as another subtle way adopted by the Buhari-led Federal Government to force the illegal and unacceptable policy on the citizens of Nigeria.

This is also as some Igbo youth groups have dismissed the veiled threats of the Northern youths to visit violence on Southerners residing in Northern Nigeria as ‘rash and impudent’.

The National Leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Comrade Uchenna Madu warned that the impulsiveness of the Northern youths and the ominous silence of the presidency over their serial treasonable utterances could force some sections of the country’s youth population to reciprocate in kind and if necessary embrace violence.

He warned that no region of the country has a monopoly of violence. A statement signed by the MASSOB leader reads in part: “The sponsored ultimatum by the faceless Northern Youths will always fail as it does not represent the position and Interest of the people of Northern Nigeria.

“The planned attack against the lives and properties of the people of Biafra residing in the Northern region mostly the Igbos after 30 days of their threat will be resisted squarely. No section of this geographical expression called Nigeria has a monopoly of violence. Much as MASSOB is a non-violence pro-Biafra group, we shall defend our land, people and nation in our traditional way.”

The MASSOB leader noted that in the light of the prevailing circumstances, a coalition of pro Biafra groups, namely Biafra Independence Organisation, Igbo Revolutionary Movement, Eastern Peoples Renewal, Biafra Clergy Network and others, have closed ranks and have called the people of Biafra to rally together and battle a common enemy.

•Excerpted from a Sunday Telegraph report.