The spokesman of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, in this interview, says the recent disruption of a meeting on insecurity at Arewa House in Kaduna State was state-sponsored and that this will not deter them from asking for the North and other parts of the country to be secured.
Last Monday CNG was holding a conference on insecurity in Arewa House and some people disrupted it; what actually happened?
We are all aware that the North is faced with multiple and intersecting challenges around the economy and more dangerously security. In the North today no community is safe. No highway is safe, people have been displaced and thousands killed and kidnapped.
So, we felt that it is time we initiate a concerted action, particularly by initiating community participation and cooperation with the security agents because apparently the security forces have been overwhelmed.
We wanted to come up with a design whereby the 19 states of the North would work in synergy and come up with a unified method of approaching these issues. Example, the Katsina State Government said the abducted schoolboys in the state were sighted in Zamfara. So, if Zamfara initiates an action, they would move to Katsina and if Katsina initiates an action they would move to Kebbi.
So, we must have a unified approach and action plan. That was how we came about organising the security summit in Kaduna.
We invited senior citizens, including retired DIGs and generals. We invited traditional institution representations, ulamas and clerics and various other groups that make up the significant component of the northern society.
These people were seated and we were about to kick off the meeting when hoodlums struck. The manner in which they operated raises suspicion of the involvement of the state, because initially there were representatives of the DSS and the CID inside the hall, but when these boys struck, they were nowhere to be found. We made contact with the police, but they did not show up, and ordinarily there used to be police and other security operatives at the house. They all disappeared. The police did not show up until after an hour. It was the vigilantes that came to our aid.
The hoodlums, about 200 of them, were wielding dangerous weapons and some people even saw them with firearms. They broke the door of the hall, moved in and chased people away. Old men and senior citizens squeezed through windows with shattered glasses. We are yet to confirm their conditions.
Some of us were hurt like Aminu Adam, the Director of Mobilisation of CNG, and I also got debris in my eyes.
We believe strongly that the attack was state sponsored because this has become a pattern with this administration.
We can site how our #Endinsecuritynow protest was disrupted in Kano, and luckily for us, all the attacks took place in the presence of the media.
You said the Kaduna attack was state sponsored, was it by the federal or state government?
The Kaduna State Government may not have hand in it because the vigilante group we are talking about is a state-owned security outfit. So, they wouldn’t have come in if they had an interest. And besides, there is no reason why one should feel that the Kaduna State Government will have an interest in disrupting the meeting, because the state itself suffers from insecurity.
The people at stake here is the Federal Government, because it is appearing every day that the Federal Government does not want this issue of security to be discussed. That is just the truth of it. I think they have an interest whereby they will not want to see the insecurity situation coming to an end; which is why they will not even allow freedom of association and freedom of speech to discuss the way forward.
I think they were apprehensive of our plan to storm Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s home town in Katsina, because we were planning to occupy Daura and stay there until the school children were rescued.
Did you formally inform the state government of this meeting?
We did not have to inform anybody. There is no law that compels citizens to seek permission from anybody so long as there is no legal restriction for meetings, gatherings or association.
However, courtesy demands that you notify your host. And it was not only not only Kaduna State, we sent invitation to all the Special Assistants on Security of the 19 northern states because it concerns them. So, the state governments were aware. The police were aware too because they even sent their representatives.
Some people said you were backing the same Buhari government that you are opposing now, what changed in the relationship?
That is neither here nor there. Those people who are saying this are confused or something. We helped in bringing about this government due to security issues. During the last lap of the Jonathan administration, there were persistent bombing and kidnapping by Boko Haram. And globally, it was felt that Jonathan could not control it.
So, we joined that campaign in good faith thinking that a new government, especially headed by a general who had been in opposition for about 12 years; that he might come in with a solid programme for securing the nation.
So, we campaigned against the previous administration. We went everywhere we were material to bring in about this administration. We were led by the late Dan Masanin Kano, Maitama Sule. We went to various places, including the US Congress. We explained to them that the North was going down and that we wanted them to allow peaceful elections.
We didn’t want them to interfere because the people needed a change, and we did have that change. I think Buhari was the only person who had a sweep of the northern front. The North came together.
Now, I don’t see any rationale in us not fighting the government if it fails to provide the same thing that it came to power to do. When we did all these for him, he did not even know. Buhari did not even know how he came to power. Tinubu did the political, we brought the North together. I think his wife even said that all the people she is seeing in government are not the ones that worked for him.
Who is bankrolling your activities?
Nobody; we are not spending anything. From the word go we broke into the heart of the media and that is 90 per cent of the job. We organised press conferences and they (media) keep coming because we give them headlines. Does that take money? It doesn’t take money to speak to the media.
The only money we may need would be money to eat, and whether in CNG or not, we must eat.
Some of those in CNG, like youths, are unemployed, how do you sustain them?
In the North we have a history of sacrifice. During the Second Republic, the PRP of late Aminu Kano was sponsored by the people. If there was going to be a meeting of the PRP in Lagos, the village man in Kano would contribute money to hire a bus.
Even President Buhari, we did that for him; people contributed N1,000, N2,000 and more.
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