Northern Elders Forum has carpeted a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode for mediating in the crisis on food blockade to the South by northern farmers.
The forum which welcomed Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello’s intervention said Fani-Kayode did not possess the integrity to intervene in such matter.
In a statement by its Director, Publicity and Advocacy, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the forum said the decision to call off the strike was reportedly brokered by Governor Bello on the instructions of President Muhammadu Buhari and conveyed through his Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Gambari.
The statement reads: “The Forum welcomes the decision of the Federal Government to address a major and prolonged grievance of transporters over multiple taxation and extortion on federal highways along with the country’s eastern corridor all the way from Borno through Adamawa, the states in the South-East and the South-South.
“These illegal checkpoints numbering more than one hundred had been pronounced as illegal, yet they had been tolerated by all authorities. The effects had been to stifle trade and massively raise the cost of transporting food items and cattle. The Forum hopes that this decision will be enforced comprehensively and immediately.
“The Forum is disturbed by the visible involvement of a private citizen identified as supporting threats to the security of northern communities in the South-West in the discussions preceding the resolution of the strike, and the mention of a number of people who had been instrumental to creating intense hostility around northerners living in the South-West. Indeed, some of the persons mentioned as having been contacted to give assurances to northern traders, herders and transporters have been fingered by the police as being involved in criminal activities against northerners in the South-West.
“The Forum also rejects the idea that the federal government or its agents could encourage the outsourcing of its duty and responsibility to protect citizens to individuals who are neck-deep in encouraging violence and corruption of communal co-existence.
“The Forum would rather believe that the involvement of these people was contrived to render its purported intervention valueless. In any case, the involvement of private citizens who represent existential threats to citizens in an exercise designed to give them assurances that they could be safe is abhorrent and unacceptable.”
The forum, however, appreciated the South-West efforts to ensure security in the country, encouraging northerners to live in the region peacefully.