National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations, NACOMYO, has called for immediate release and compensation of the 486 Northerners arrested in Abia on their way to Port Harcourt last Sunday.
The Muslim youth frowned at the arrest of the northerners by soldiers alleging that they were members of Boko Haram sect.
In a statement by its Secretary General, Malam Binyamin .A. Yusuf and made available to journalists in Kaduna, NACOMYO called for full compensation to be paid to them for violating their fundamental human right.
They alleged that this was not the first time innocent Muslims and Nigerians of northern extraction were being subjected to unnecessary harassment in Abia and other eastern states.
The group gave example of students of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, who went for a convention of their association and were rounded up in their hotel and quickly labeled “Boko Haram” in the same state few months back.
“The soldiers perpetrating these atrocities should be posted to Borno State where they could be very useful to detect real Boko Haram instead of subjecting innocent Nigerians to unwarranted sufferings and incarceration.
“NACOMYO calls for immediate release of these innocent Nigerians and full compensation paid to them for violating their fundamental human rights. Greater caution has to be exercised by these soldiers not to create bad precedence that will hinder free movement of Nigerians within the country and retaliation elsewhere,” he said.
The group further prayed for the safe return of the abducted girls and commiserated with Kano State government over the demise of late Ado Bayero just as it congratulated the new Emir, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
The youth further mourned the death of a great patron of Muslim youth organizations, the Vice President of the Nigerian Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs and the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba Land, late Alhaji Chief Abdul Azeez Arisekola Alao.
Biafra Galaxy
