BY QUADRI SALIU
House of Representative’s Speaker, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, has on Wednesday blasted the Yoruba Nation agitators, adding that they are not different from the deadly Boko Haram who had killed innocent Nigerians in their thousands.
Presently, the Yoruba agitators have taken their peaceful protest to New York City in the United States where the United Nations are gathered for a meeting.
The Speaker made the statement Wednesday on the resumption of the House of Representatives from the 2021 annual legislative recess.
Gbajabiamila said: “We must now add to these concerns an emerging threat that presents the same clear and present danger.
“In the South of Nigeria, East and West, miscreants and criminals masquerading as separationist activists have emerged to wreak havoc, take lives and commit economic sabotage against fellow Nigerians and against the state.
“These people, in their inclination for devastating violence against fellow citizens, their appetite for the destruction of private property, their disruption of academic activities, commerce, and industry, their propensity for defiling institutions of the state, society and community, their refusal to engage in debate, or to consider the possibility of dissenting opinions and alternative viewpoints, are no different from Boko Haram and ISWAP.
“Given space and time, they will take our nation down the same path of destruction.
“Thus far, we have rightly focused our national security concerns on the machinations of extremist insurgents who seek to remake our world in the image of their discredited theocracy and bandits who maraud and terrorise whole regions for profit.
“We know from experience that neither appeasement nor overwhelming violence alone will work.
“We have been down this road before; we know what the consequences of inaction can be.
“We also know that we cannot afford to be reactionary in our approach.
“This is the time to convene our best efforts to articulate a political, economic, military and policing strategy to address both the manifestations and root causes of this emerging threat.
“Let nobody be under the impression that there is a political opportunity in exploiting this moment.
“This is a time for statesmen to act beyond the petty considerations of politics, to do the hard things and achieve greatness.”
