The Coalition of Northern Groups has asked the Federal Government, to declare a state of emergency in Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and Plateau states until normalcy returns. The coalition also urged the Federal Government to suspend all existing political structures in the affected states and replace them with sole administrators. The spokesman for the coalition, Abdulazeez Suleiman, made this call at a media briefing in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Suleiman said while the coalition condemned the actions of all criminal gangs under any guise, it emphatically repudiated the vilification of one ethnic and religious group or the other for whatever reason. He said, "In this light, we deem the targeting of the entire Fulani and by extension, Muslims, for vilification, systematic dehumanisation, profiling, alienation or any action that will render them object of attack and persecution , not only immoral and illegal, but also abhorrent to our sensibilities and ordinary decency and therefore unacceptable,"
On the call for the declaration of a state of emergency, the spokesman said, "We call on the Federal Government to declare state of emergency in the frontline states of Taraba, Kaduna, Benue and Zamfara and suspend the current political structures in those states and replace them with sole administrators until conditions improve.”
He said the coalition was aware that targeting of any ethnic or religious group and singling it out for any negative action for all intents and purposes. was against both national and international laws. Such acts, he pointed out, usually served as a prelude to genocide and ethnic cleansing and is, therefore, actionable under international human rights and humanitarian law, as well as international criminal law”The group noted that the Federal Government should take the blame for failing to act promptly when the crisis started.