By Adadainfo
The Supreme Council of Southern Nigerian Youths, Saturday, decried the dominance of northerners in the nation’s polity, and vowed to ‘rebuild, develop, defend, liberate, and reform the region from imminent threat to devastation, suppression, and calculated enslavement by some interests’,
The group stated this in a communiqué after its summit in Enugu. The council of youths, made of pressure groups, civil society groups, students, professional bodies, diaspora associations and members of the clergy from the region, also rated the Independent National Electoral Commission very low in the 2023 general elections.
The group’s communiqué was signed by its national president, Arthur Obiora. It therefore called on the Nigerian judiciary to restore hopes of Nigerians in the electoral process by being just in delivering judgements on the myriads of petitions expected at various tribunals in the aftermath of the polls.
It bemoaned what it called ‘the northern hegemony in Nigeria’, and called for the review of the nation’s constitution to reflect true federalism where equity and justice prevail.
The group said, “The southern part of the country, which is Nigeria’s goldmine through her oil rich asset and other natural resources, has continued to wallow in suffering of political marginalisation in the fierce hands of some northerners.
“It is clear that the northern hegemony has covenanted to control and dominate our resources, and cause us to become beggars over our wealth. The hegemony also ensures discrimination of southerners in the federation. The youths of southern Nigeria are tired of this foxy deception called ‘one Nigeria’. For southern Nigeria to have a sense of belonging, there is need for the review of the Nigerian constitution in accordance with true federalism.”
On security, the group expressed disgust that the federal government could not protect the citizenry, and advocated regional and community policing as well as restructuring of the entire service chiefs, which it said had been hijacked by the northerners.
According to it, Nigeria lacked the apparatus to fight ‘her festering corruption’, noting that its ‘cancerous element has eaten deep into all sectors and brought overwhelming moral decadence, even in the judiciary’.
It nonetheless hailed the zoning of the presidency to the southern part of the country, calling on president-elect Bola Tinubu to ‘leave no stone unturned in restoring Nigeria’s lost glory’.
