By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
National President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Yerima Shettima, has denied issuing a war threat against #EndSARS protesters.
A news report had alleged that the AYCF national leader had threatened that the North would go to war should the #EndSARS protesters continue to push that Muhammadu Buhari resigns as Nigeria’s president.
But a statement signed by the AYCF legal adviser, Abubakar Liman, said the statement credited to Shettima was fake news.
“The attention of the AYCF has been drawn to a news by an online platform, in which our National President was purportedly threatening war against the EndSARS protests. The online newspapers’ sensational and fictitious news story said our National President has declared that “North will go to war if Southerners remove Buhari. This is a concoction of the publishers’ riotous imagination,” the statement said.
According to Liman, the AYCF National President has never been associated with combative or violent protest to opposing views, for whatever reason
“Our National President has always been a democrat, following legitimate constitutional processes in his agitations and it is for this reason he has built a record of fearless activism but free of violence.
“Much as any other civil society group is free to choose the combative or violent mode of protest, we at the AYCF do not and will never resort to such abhorrent method. The AYFC is a platform of matured citizens who strongly believe in deepening Nigeria’s democracy,” he said.
According to the statement, the AYCF is unapologetic in the promotion of democracy through legal and legitimate means, in line with the nation’s constitution, which supports presentation of grievances with respect to the Rule of Law.
The statement added that the AYCF remains a Northern support group of matured minds who cannot be intimidated or stampeded into compromising the North and its people’s principles or interests.