The Middle Belt Youth Council (MBYC) has offered to support the Igbo tribes of Nigeria should the northerners carry out their threat to attack.
Following the 90 days ultimatum given by some group in Kaduna for the Igbos living in the state to vacate, MBYC released a statement declaring their stand in ensuing conflict.
In the statement signed allegedly signed by group’s President, Emma Zopmal, they said:
"We wish to express our profound gratitude to God for keeping us alive today. Middle Belt Youth Council is extremely concerned about the ongoing regional tension in Nigeria today and we want to make our position clear to the world.
"In the light of incessant threats to one Nigeria posed by killer-herdsmen, we want to call on good people of Middle Belt to first of all, support the Anti-grazing Bill.
"Grazing by Fulani herdsmen on our land has become the major cause of conflicts in our region. Therefore, we’re calling for total ban on open grazing so as to save the lives of our people and their farmlands.
"Secondly, it’s no longer news that our country Nigeria is facing a daunting challenge of peace and unity but we want to assure the good citizens of Nigeria that we have been a peace-loving people and we’ll continue to be.
"But, in an event one part of the country decides to go away as a separate entity, Middle Belt is also ready to make an independent statement. We want to clarify those who think that the Middle Belt is part of the North: God created everywhere and everyone and He gave it to whom he chooses and Middle Belt is a creation of God and not man (Usman bn Fodio).
"Therefore, we choose what to use our land for, how to run it and where we want to be.
"Middle Belt has been a home for the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, South-South and the South-West without any form of discrimination against anyone.
"We’ve accommodated every Nigerian for centuries now. We deserve respect and commendations."In reaction, the news of death threats issued to the Igbos in Kaduna, the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo took to the presidency social media page to declare quote:
"Nigeria belongs to all of us. No person or group is more important or more entitled than the other in this space that we all call home."
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