The Northern Elders Forum has told President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 States Governors to act swiftly to arrest the deteriorating security situation in the country, adding that the country was being set on fire under their watch.
The NEF stated this on Saturday through its Spokesman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, in a tweet.
Baba-Ahmed in the Twitter post said Nigerians living in any part of the country must be protected by the government.
He tweeted: “Attacking innocent southerners living in the north will not be the right response to attacks on northerners in the south.
“We should demand that Nigerians, wherever they are, must be protected.
“President and governors: Do something, NOW!
“They are setting the country on fire under you.”
In a statement on Sunday, the NEF further emphasised the need for cohesion in the country.
Baba-Ahmed said in the statement: “Northern Elders Forum is constrained to invite the nation’s attention to the dangers of sustained attempts to raise tensions and create fears among Nigerians until, presumably, they lead to major crisis involving groups and regions in the country.
“In the last few weeks, the Forum has led many responsible groups and individuals to appeal for restraint and respect for the law in the way we engineer developments that cause tensions, or react to them.
“Now the nation is facing imminent threats from persons who are bent on pushing all of us nearer to disaster, to help them achieve their nefarious goals.
“The Forum particularly notes that continuing narratives and threats, including comments from seemingly responsible Nigerians and even elected officials who swore to protect the rights of all citizens and the survival of the country, are raising fears and passions that could make it easy to break more laws of the land and pitch citizens against each other.
“There are efforts to create multiple sources of falsehood in videos and other inflammatory materials in the media clearly targeted at inciting people to act violently against each other.
“Allegations of planned or actual genocide are being made with reckless abandon, and even the international community is being lobbied in futile efforts to sell the fiction that some groups are intent on mass extermination of other groups.
“The latest communication by the Yoruba Council of Elders to the United Nations is an example of lamentable desperation of some groups to erode our security and integrity as a country, and it is more regrettable that it is the handiwork of so-called elders who should forfeit all rights to that honour.
“Northern Elders Forum commits to continue to work to retrieve the country from the dangerous cliff where it has been placed by irresponsible people, many of them in positions of responsibility.
