9News Nigeria Abuja correspondent reports that a heavy protest has erupted in the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory, Abuja after a group of northern women charged the Federal Government to heed to the demands for a referendum.
The women who presented themselves as the Amalgamation of Northern Women Associations demanded that the Buhari government should grant a referendum to allow Biafran agitators to decide democratically whether or not to remain in Nigeria.
The coordinator of the group, Hadiza Adamu, spoke on behalf of other members, during a protest in Abuja, on Saturday.
Speaking on behalf of the Amalgamation of Northern Women Associations, the group leader, Hadiza Adamu said on Saturday, 5th June 2021 that as women who understand the pain and suffering caused by the war in any circumstance, they do not want another insurrection nor war in Nigeria.
“The aftermath of the war and the sufferings left lifetime scars in our hearts and on our bodies. It is for this reason that we (have) come together today and say we don’t want another war, another insurrection,” Hadiza said.
She also said that Nigerian history has shown that women carry the heavy burden of war and acts of insurrections and terrorism, therefore women have gone through it from 1967 to 1971, seeing men died and left their wives with the children to cater for out of nothing, other men that survived simply moved on but the women never moved on.
“We, therefore, unanimously call on President Muhammadu Buhari as the leader and father of the country; and the leadership of the National Assembly, President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawal; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila; to immediately call for a referendum in the country,” Hadiza continued to clamour.
Hadiza said that the group is clamouring that the government should let people choose to live in peace in Nigeria or leave. She said that any other group or nationality that wants to secede to exercise their rights of self-determination like the South-East has been agitated for decades to be allowed to leave Nigeria peacefully, without resorting to a second civil war.
“Today the Igbo nation has turned the entire South-East to almost a war zone, northerners irrespective of their tribes are no longer safe, states’ infrastructures are no longer safe, service personnel from police to army are not safe, INEC offices and other symbols of democracy in the country are being destroyed on daily basis, our husbands that go to do business in South-East no longer return home safe, our political leaders who travel to the South-East on national assignments are assassinated in broad daylight,” Hadiza Adamu stated soberly.
