ABUJA: A radical Muslim group has bowed to political pressure and backed off from a ultimatum to the mainly Christian Igbo minority that they quit northern Nigeria or face reprisals.
The Arewa Youths had given all Igbos living in the north until October 1 to leave.
The threat, issued in June, worsened the simmering ethnic and religious tensions across Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous nation, and provoked widespread condemnation.
Late on Thursday, the Arewa Youths issued a statement stepping back from their ultimatum.
“Mindful of the concerns generated by the clause... that advised the Biafran Igbo to relocate... we immediately opened channels for dialogue and interaction,” the group said.
“Admittedly, we came under intense pressure from genuinely concerned national, political, traditional, religious and cultural leaders.
“As a consequence of these vigorous engagements... we are today pleased to announce the immediate suspension of the relocation clause.”
Since the so-called “quit notice” was issued on June 8, the federal government in Abuja had repeatedly called for calm.
Then on Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari addressed the issue in a televised speech following a long absence from the country for health reasons.
“Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable. We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble and when things get bad they run away,” he said.
The Arewa Youths’ ultimatum was itself in response to a bid by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) — a mainly Igbo group in the south — to secede from Nigeria.
“We will not accept a system that is designed to alienate and subdue the people of the north,” the northern Muslim group said in response, calling for a referendum of Igbo people to settle the Biafra issue.
Rising communalism and anti-Igbo sentiment has been blamed on the IPOB’s bid to declare independence.
Their initiative has been stoked by memories of 1967 when their predecessors declared an independent republic of Biafra in the southeast.
That declaration led to a brutal 30-month civil war and more than one million deaths, most of them Igbos, from starvation and disease.
Nigeria is roughly evenly split between the Muslim-majority north and the largely Christian south, but the country is made up of more than 250 ethnic groups.
The biggest is the Hausa-speaking Fulani in the north, the Yoruba in the southwest and the Igbo in the southeast. Many have relocated for economic reasons over the years.
Nigerian Muslim group retracts expulsion threat to Christians
Nigerian Muslim group retracts expulsion threat to Christians
South Sudan officers face court martial over civilian massacre
- The increasingly unstable country is seeing a surge of fighting between government and opposition forces
JUBA: South Sudanese soldiers, including two officers, will face a court martial over a civilian massacre last month, the army spokesman said Wednesday.
The increasingly unstable country is seeing a surge of fighting between government and opposition forces, much of it in eastern Jonglei state where at least 280,000 people have been displaced since December according to the UN.
At least 25 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Ayod County in Jonglei state on February 21, according to the opposition.
Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said that two officers, including a major, and several non-commissioned officers, had been arrested and would face charges in the capital Juba, “before they are arraigned before a competent military court martial.”
He said the deaths were attributed to “some elements” under Gen. Johnson Olony, who was filmed in January ordering troops to “spare no lives” in Jonglei.
Koang said the soldiers had “moved out without the knowledge or authorization of the division commander.”
He also said they had been part of a militia group allied to opposition forces, parts of which had not yet been fully integrated into the army.
Military integration was among the core principles of a peace agreement that ended South Sudan’s five-year civil war in 2018 between President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival, Riek Machar, but it was never implemented.
Koang said the army regretted the loss of lives, adding: “We would like to once again remind our forces that their mandate is to protect civilians and their property, not to do the opposite.”
It followed an impassioned plea from the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference on recent civilian killings — in Ayod, and also in Abiemnom County near the Sudan border where at least 169 people were killed on Sunday.
“We implore you to deploy resources to protect vulnerable populations and foster a climate of dialogue and reconciliation instead of violence and revenge, consoling the bereaved and supporting the afflicted,” it said in a statement.
