24th August, 2017
The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum has withdrawn its quit notice to Igbos living in the northern part of the country.
The coalition of northern youth groups announced this on Thursday after a meeting in Abuja.
In attendance at the meeting were the Governor of Borno State, some Igbo traditional rulers, and elders from the north.
The decision to withdraw the notice comes barely three weeks after the northern youths and Igbo traditional rulers living in the north met in Kano to thrash out the issues threatening the peace.
The group had on June 6 given Igbos three months’ notice to quit northern Nigeria stating that it would allow them to achieve their call for secession.
But the move attracted widespread criticism with the Kaduna State Government ordering the arrest of those behind the notice, a day after it was issued.
The government and many others who condemned the notice said all Nigerians had the “constitutional and human rights to live peacefully and own property wherever they choose”.
To ease the regional tension that followed the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who was Acting President at the time, held meetings with the leaders of both region during which he insisted that the unity of the nation was not negotiable.