New Telegraph

Food strike, an insult on Southern Nigeria –SMBLF

The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) has described as appalling the recent strike of members of the Amalgamated Union of Foodstuff and Cattle Dealers in Nigeria (AUFCDN), stating that the industrial action is an assault on the sensibilities of southerners.

 

T he leaders, in a statement jointly issued yesterday by Mr. Yinka Odumakin (South-West), Chief Guy Ikoku (South-East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South- South), and Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt), frowned at the development, describing the financial demand for compensation as outrageous.

 

Members of AUFCDN had blocked the movement of cattle and foodstuffs from the Northern part of the country to the South for almost a week over what they described as incessant attacks on their members in the South and extortion by security agents on highways.

 

The group also demanded N4.75 billion as compensation for the alleged killing of its members and properties lost during the #EndSARS protests and the Shasha market crisis.

 

SMBLF said: “The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum is appalled by the recent assault on the sensibilities of non-Fulani Nigeria by food sellers and cattle dealers association who were making outrageous financial demand as compensation from government.

 

“This is a group whose members have been committing murderous activities and owning up to them without consequences. When they admitted killing 78 people in Benue in January 2018, the President invited Governor Samuel Ortom to go and seek a peaceful way to live with his killerneighbours.

 

It is this kind of pampering that must have encouraged them. “We are not unaware that the Police that had not lifted a finger over the killing of Olufon of Ifon by herdsmen in broad daylight, recently invited leaders of Ifon community to Abuja to come and explain missing cows.

 

“The clear absence of justice in Buhari’s Nigeria is a vital signal that will do the country no good if we go on with this waywardness. “We commend Middle Belt Forum for the good sense they showed in condemning the blockage even when the Nigerian rulers lost theirs during the taunt,” the statement said

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