The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum have rejected an apology tendered by Alhaji Tanko Yakasai after the group instituted a law suit challenging lopsided appointments by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The group, in a statement on Thursday, said the elder statesman was obviously ignorant of the fact that the Middle Belt traversed 15 states across the North and that its agenda was for an inclusive Nigeria for everybody.
The SMBLF statement was signed by Yinka Odumakin (South West), Chief Guy Ikokwu (South East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-South) and Dr Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt).
Read also: Obasanjo’s habit of letter writing ‘selfish’, ‘unpatriotic’- Yakasai
The statement reads: “Speaking as someone from the area that benefits from the iniquity, Alhaji Yakasai made an untenable charge of our protest against injustice as a plot to divide Nigeria, whereas it is those he is consulting for that are pulling us apart with their divisive policies of treating Nigeria like an apartheid enclave, where some sections are given condescending treatment in our joint patrimony.
“His more ridiculous charge is that our organisation is an attempt to enforce the Orkar coup that tried to excise North West and North East from Nigeria. He is apparently ignorant of the fact that the Middle Belt traverses 15 states across the North and that our agenda is for an inclusive Nigeria for all.
“Does he know that the current President of Middle Belt Forum is from Borno in the North East? His being a beneficiary of iniquity will also not let him know that it is the kind of exclusion that we are complaining about that made the Middle Belt to seek independent identity within Nigeria in the first place.”
Opinions