Northern Leaders Warn Nigerians Against Beating 'War Drums'

The 19 Northern states Governors and traditional rulers in the region have implored Nigerians to stop beating drums of war, saying the North is committed to the unity of the country.

They made the imploration at a meeting of the committee set up by the Northern Governors Forum and the Northern Traditional Rulers Council to aggregate views of Northerners on the restructuring debate in the country.

Chairman of the committee and Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, who spoke on behalf of the governors and royal fathers, appealed to agitators across the country to be calm.

According to him, even if the country goes to war, people will still have to come back to discuss their issues on the round table.

He said, "There is a process going on in the country for engagement and I am sure the federal government is willing to listen to all these agitations at the end of the day.

"And don't forget that even if you embark on a war at this stage, you don't get result through war. You will always come back to the round table and discuss the issues. So, I want to call on all Nigerians to give peace a chance".

Tambuwal said the committee agreed that a technical committee be set up to work on the previous documents, conferences and position papers and then come back to the committee of the whole house within three weeks.

He continued: "Thereafter, every state will conduct public hearing and we will be meeting on 24th October 2017 by the grace of God to review all that. So, by the end of October, God willing, we shall be able to get back to the larger body of the Northern Governors Forum and Northern traditional leaders and Council.

"All the issues that are going to be brought up by a technical committee that has been constituted by this body will be critically looked into so that we can subject them to a very robust database debate across the North and the outcome of that will be presented to Northern governors and traditional rulers".

In his remarks, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, also called for the unity of the country, just as he stressed that dialogue was the only way of addressing the agitations.

He said, "I believe in the conversation. We have just looked into three main items that stood out clearly. The first is that we have heard our commitment to the unity of the country and we are going to have a regional conversation to express the pressing issue that has been raised.