Northern Youth group boils over Emefiele

The Northern Youth Assembly has been engulfed in an unmitigated crisis of interest with a faction claiming to have impeached the Speaker, Mohammed Salihu Danlami, alledging that he uses the group for “devious political plots to discredit effort of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele.”

In a statement signed by Adamu Muhammad Funtua, Chairman of Committee on Media and Information which was sent to CAPITAL POST on Thursday, said the Speaker has been impeached and expelled for smear campaign and other unwholesome practices.

The statement said, even President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic agenda was also not spared of calumny, stressing that Danlami’s conduct posed a national security threat, hence, they have no choice than to impeach and expel him from the group.

In his stead, Mr Tahir Muhammad Azare has been appointed as Speaker of the group.

The statement said: “We had asked ourselves, which Emefiele is Mr. Salihu Danlami talking about? Is it the CBN Governor who deployed over N756 billion to 3.7 million farmers cultivating over 4.6 million hectares of farmland under the Anchor Borrowers Programme? Or was it the same man who provided N23 billion in relief materials to Covid-19 affected households and set up 39 Isolation Centres across Nigeria?

“We advised him and his thieving patrons to look elsewhere for a new target as Emefiele was a wrong target because he is not the cause of their poverty of ideas and take their fake news of Emefiele’s Presidential ambition somewhere else.”

“Salihu Mohammed had in a statement, launched verbal attacks on the person and office of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, attacked the economic agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari and threatened to shut down the Central Bank of Nigeria indefinitely.

“We have since reliably gathered that the smear campaign against Emefiele was being sponsored by some faceless prominent Nigerians who want to have their cronies in charge of the apex bank so that they can continue to loot the nation’s treasury unabated and to use funds from the bank to bankroll their vaulted political ambitions.

“As a responsible youth organization, we find it ridiculous, shameful and embarrassing that Salihu Mohammed Danlami can drag the good name of our group into this mess.” the Assembly said.

“No wonder Salihu has refused to hand over as the Speaker of our dear organization in the past seven years that he led the Assembly until he was disgraced out few days ago. It is clear that his desperation to remain in power is just to continue to use the name of the group to carry out nefarious activities to feather his nest.

Reacting to the impeachment saga, Salihu Danlami in a telephone conversation with CAPITAL POST insisted that he is the Speaker.

He explained that another set of executives of Arewa Youth Assembly will emerge through a congress which comes up on December 18, 2021 adding that Nigerians should not take the impeachment claim serious.

He further explained that issues he raised against the CBN governor should be defended rather distraction.

In the same vein, the National Clerk of Arewa Assembly, Hon. Desmond Mainakaro in a statement stated that the impeachment claim was carried out by attention seeking faceless groups.

He wondered how Tahir Muhammad Azare emerged from the blues claiming to have unseated the leadership of a group that was legally constituted.

The statement averred:
“The attention of the Leadership of Arewa Youth Assembly has been drawn to a release by a faceless group led by one Tahir Muhammad Azare who before now have never been seen or participated in any activity of the Arewa Youth Assembly.

“It is therefore, surprising for someone who doesn’t exist in the world of Arewa Youth Assembly to woke up overnight and claim something he doesn’t know of.

“This we believe, is aim at causing distraction from the main issue at hand, which is the incompetent and corrupt style of leadership of the CBN Governor, Emefiele, that is being questioned by the honourable Youth Assembly.

“We anticipated such tactics from those blindly supporting the CBN Governor. But we refused to be distracted from pursing our patriotic responsibility of safeguarding our economic integrity as a nation.

“To this end, we wish to call on security agencies to arrest with immediate effect the impostor (Tahir Muhammad Azare) for impersonation and breach of public peace, as his statement is capable of creating tension and unrest within the Arewa Youth Assembly family.”

Salihu Danlami has been in the forefront calling for Godwin Emefiele’s resignation as Central Bank governor over incompetence and total failure of Nigeria’s monetary policies under his watch.