As controversies continue to trail the relocation of some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, from Abuja to Lagos, the Arewa Consultative Youth and Women Forum, ACYWF, has described the protests as unnecessary.
OsunDailyNG recalls that the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, and some northern groups, especially, Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations (JACNYA) had criticized the move, describing it as a deliberate ploy to further underdevelop the northern region of the country.
Addressing a press conference on Monday in Kaduna, JACNYA had said the relocation of FAAN headquarters to Lagos, “is a clear violation of the federal character principle enshrined in the constitution”.
However, in a counter statement made available to OsunDailyNG on Tuesday, ACYWF distanced itself from the criticisms and the protests.
ACYWF’s statement was signed by its National President, Alhaji Adamu Mohammed Matazu.
The Forum said the current efforts of the President Bola Tinubu-led government to reform the aviation sector should rather be commended.
They also urged the immediate past Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, to stay off President Tinubu’s government and allow the administration to propel the policies and programmes it deemed necessary to renew and reform the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.
The group said, “We read with total shock how some of our people have decided to trivialise issues of national importance like the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria office to Lagos.
“What we have not yet understood is what they stand to gain in all of these.
“We have a plethora of issues begging for regional emergency and attention.
“We are faced with insecurity, banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency across our land.
“We have countless IDPs centres that should rather bother us on how to relocate them to their ancestral homes.
“It would have been a good discourse if our Northern elders are talking to the President on how to relocate these IDPs, create rehabilitation centres for the victims of attacks, bring humanitarian interventions to the people, create more empowerment for the people and get some of the moribund cottage industries and factories in the north to work again.
“The last time we checked, Lagos was still part of Nigeria, and most of the government infrastructures domiciled in Lagos are doing well. It would have been a different thing if FAAN was moved to Benin Republic or Niger.”
“If moving FAAN to Lagos will bring the desired reform and change the face of the aviation industry for the betterment of all Nigerians, we the youths and women leaders from the North are fully in support of it.
“We believe in one Nigeria, and we believe in the progress and development of this nation.
“We don’t have two countries. Some of us haven’t gone out of this country before, not to talk of acquiring two citizenship. So, we must believe in Nigeria and support the Nigeria project,” the Forum declared.
ACYWF further stated that “the recent increase in kidnap cases in the city centre of the Federal Capital Territory should be of great concern to everyone.
“If kidnappers could visit Army Estate in Abuja and conveniently kidnap their victims, then they could attack anywhere in Abuja.”
The Forum accused Sirika of squandering the opportunity to write his name in gold.
