2023: Southern Group Berates INEC, Tasks Judiciary To Restore Hope

The Supreme Council of Southern Nigerian Youths, Saturday, said the Independent National Electoral Commission failed to live up to expectations in the just-concluded 2023 general elections.

The group, comprising ethnic nationals, pressure groups, civil society groups, students, professional bodies, diaspora associations and members of the clergy from the region, tasked the judiciary to ‘prove to Nigerians that it is the last hope of the common man composed of persons with integrity by defending the truth and declaring the rightful winners of the 2023 polls at courts’.

Advertisement

The group stated this in a communiqué signed by its national president, Arthur Obiora. It regretted what it called ‘the northern hegemony in Nigeria to the detriment of the southern parts of the country in areas of infrastructure, federal character, equity and justice’.

According to the group, “The southern part of the country, which is Nigeria’s goldmine through her oil rich asset and other natural resources, has continued to wallow in suffering of political marginalisation,” adding that the group “is seeking to liberate the zone from oppression in the fierce hands of some northerners.”

The communiqué read, “It is clear that the northern hegemony has covenanted to control and dominate our resources, and cause us to become beggars over our wealth. The hegemony also ensures discrimination of southerners in the federation. The youths of southern Nigeria are tired of this foxy deception called ‘one Nigeria’. For southern Nigeria to have a sense of belonging, there is need for the review of the Nigerian constitution in accordance with true federalism.”

The council of youths said it was unfortunate that the federal government has failed to provide adequate security for the citizenry of Nigeria, and called for regional and community policing and the restructuring of the entire service chiefs for all-inclusiveness.

Advertisement

The southern youths said Nigeria lacked the apparatus to fight ‘her festering corruption’, adding that its ‘cancerous element has eaten deep into all sectors and brought overwhelming moral decadence, even in the judiciary’.

The group however commended the zoning of the presidency to the southern part of the country, and advised the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, to ‘leave no stone unturned in restoring Nigeria’s lost glory’. It resolved to ‘rebuild, develop, defend, liberate, and reform the region from imminent threat to devastation, suppression, and calculated enslavement by some interests in the country’.

Leave a comment

Advertisement