22nd April, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) on Saturday said the lame excuses being given by the Federal Government for not evacuating Nigerian students stranded in war-torn Sudan is unacceptable.
The AYCF, in a statement issued by Yerima Shettima, National President, said it is totally unacceptable that while several countries were evacuating their citizens from Sudan, the Nigerian government is the only African nation giving excuses.
“With thousands of Nigerians in Sudan, especially male and female Northern students being the majority, we reject the lame excuse given in a letter by the Nigeria Embassy about the difficulty of evacuating our sons and daughters. No Northerner in this country is at peace since the killings and arson started in Sudan.
“We are aware that the Sudanese government had already warned that the situation would escalate, and gave 72 hours ultimatum for countries whose citizens are either doing business or schooling in that country to be evacuated. We cannot fathom why all we get at the moment is the excuse by our Embassy that doing so would be difficult. What held us from taking advantage of the 72 hours ultimatum in the first place?
“It is abundantly clear that lives are now at stake, especially for our Northern brothers and sisters schooling in Sudan, considering the escalation of this war, that involves the use of heavy-duty incendiary,” the body said.
As a group, AYCF made it categorically clear that if innocent Northern brothers and sisters schooling in Sudan got killed in this war, “we shall hold the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan accountable.
“We wish to emphasize that on no account should these young and innocent Nigerians be left to their own devices, because they have a fatherland that has the constitutional and legal responsibility to protect the lives of citizens anywhere they are on this planet.”