Northern youths groups comprise of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) and Coalition of Arewa People for Peace and Security (CAPS), yesterday, claimed to have foreseen destructive outcome of #EndSARS. protest, hence their resolve to back down on popularising it in the North.
The groups at a joint press briefing at Arewa House, Kaduna, then called for calm and restoration of peace and order across the country so the government could walk the talk with regards to their demands.
President of AYCF and Chairman Board of Trustees (BoT) CAPS, Shettima Yerima, lamented that #EndSARS protest was hijacked thereby leading to breakdown of law and order, vandalism, looting, and destruction of private and public properties.
“While they were busy with the protest on #EndSARS, we are also here protesting insurgency, banditry and kidnappers. So, when we noticed that it was going to lead to anarchy, we reached out to all groups here in the North to back out of the protest.
“Our case in the North is dicey because we only hear go and we don’t here come. The country must remain together. The challenges we face in the North are different from what the South experience. They have more of “Yahoo boys” in the south while we have bandits, insurgents etc in the North, hence, the difference in approach to our demands”, he said.
Spokesman for CAPS, Isah Abubakar, who read the press statement before the newsmen said though northern youths were in full support of the #EndSARS protest demanding an end to police brutality, extortion, torture and killings of young persons by different units of the police force, they deliberately avoided taking to the streets in their numbers like those in other parts of the country did.
He pleaded with President Buhari to do more in the area of general security because, “lives of the people must come first always, be it in the North, or in the South”.
