Buhari not ready to pay promoters of secessionist agitations to cease fire – Presidency

The presidency declared on Tuesday that President Muhammadu Buhari would not pay any group or individual pushing for the country’s break-up to cease fire.

The presidency was reacting to the recent emergence of a group demanding the secession of the Yoruba people from Nigeria.

On the other hand, the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been unrelenting in its quest for the resurrection of the Republic of Biafra that was crushed during Nigeria’s three years’ civil of 1967 to 1970.

However, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu, who addressed journalists at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Secretariat in Abuja, said nobody in Nigeria can intimidate the President to accept the demands of secessionist agitators.

He insisted that calls for Nigeria’s break-up have always been used to bully the previous governments into paying the promoters to end their agitations.

Shehu said: “The first one is about the unity of this country and the calls for secession, and they said the presidency is not talking; the presidency has been talking and our position is clearly that this country is one and is united, and by the grace of God will continue to be united.

READ ALSO: Elite spearheading agitations for Nigeria’s break-up – Lawan

“One thing with this President – and the National Secretary (of the Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary Convention Planning Committee of the APC) has said a bit of that; you can’t intimidate Buhari. You can’t bully him.

“A lot of these people who are calling for secessions; they are the problem of this country. And I am happy that reasonable opinions, reasonable voices are now rising. Is it not only yesterday that we are reading Afenifere – the most credible faction of Afenifere – saying ‘we’re not for secession’? The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has said this over and over again.

“So, this the thing about secession; they had used it in the past. You create secession and break up Nigeria and then, you intimidate the sitting leader and then he opens the booth and he brings money to settle people.

“President Buhari will pay no one. He is not going to pay. And now, it is clear that having ignored all of that, reasonable opinions are coming from those states and from those regions.”

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