ACF Decries Worsening Insecurity in the North
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has expressed deep concern over the worsening state of insecurity in Northern Nigeria, lamenting that banditry, kidnappings, and other violent crimes continue to devastate communities and leave families in grief.
Speaking at the Forum’s 78th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held on Wednesday at its secretariat in Kaduna, ACF Chairman, Chief Mamman Osuman (SAN), said the North was bleeding from the loss of lives to criminals as well as to natural disasters.
“This is an uncommon and troubling period when politics, unimaginable vicissitudes, treachery, crime, and environmental disasters are devastating our people,” Osuman said. “We have lost children, young men and women, and the aged — not only to natural causes, floods and drowning, but also to evil criminals, psychopaths, gangsters, bandits, marauders, and terrorists.”
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He urged northern families and communities to embrace unity, vigilance, and introspection, stressing that citizens must not “sit on the fence, or like the ostrich, bury their heads in the sand under the delusion that they see nothing.”
During the meeting, the Forum paid tribute to eminent northern leaders who recently passed away, including former President Muhammadu Buhari, Justice Mohammed Uwais, Prof. Jubril Aminu, Chief Audu Ogbeh, and Alhaji Aminu Dantata. Members observed a minute’s silence in their honour.
Osuman reaffirmed the Forum’s commitment to safeguarding the interests of the North within the framework of a united and indivisible Nigeria, noting that the ACF remains a non-partisan body.
The NEC also reviewed preparations for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Forum scheduled for October, while deliberating on lingering issues such as the Ette boundary dispute. The session featured a presentation on the “State of the Nation” and is expected to culminate in a communiqué to be released by the Forum’s Publicity Secretary, Prof. Tukur Baba.
By PRNigeria