OPC warns over eviction threat to Yoruba

Gani Adams

A pan-Yoruba group, the Oodua People’s Congress, has called on leaders and stakeholders in the southern part of the country to caution the Niger Delta Agitators over its threat of eviction of the Yoruba people resident in the region.

The OPC warned that the backlash of such move might not be palatable.

The NDA was widely reported in the media earlier in the week to have threatened to evict the Yoruba from the Niger Delta region.

Calling for caution over the threat, the OPC in a statement issued on Friday, said it “could deflate the robust relationship between the South-West and South-South.”

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Otunba Gani Adams, the OPC said the threat issued by the NDA’s leader, John Duku, was the second of such in recent time, hence a call to southern leaders andstakeholders to caution the group.

“We know that the position of the militants may not reflect that of their leaders. There is a needfor them to speak out against the move of the group,” the OPC said.

The group also condemned what it called the “emerging systematic war against freedom of speech in the country and an indirect clampdown on the media” by agencies of the Federal Government, warning that Nigeria should not be dragged back into the military era.

However, Duku has now said that the militants may withdraw its quit notice issued to northerners and Yoruba living in the area.

He said on Friday that the group was still consulting andwould likely issue a statement after the meeting of the various militant leaders on Saturday (today) or Sunday.

Describing the northern youths’ withdrawal of their quit notice to Igbo people living in the North as a welcome development, Duku, said, “If majority say we should withdraw, we will. We have our demands; there are demands which the government has not done any of them.”