More facts have now emerged on how the Second Republic Political Adviser, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, led some northern elders to form a parallel body within the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF).
The emergence of Yakasai-led Northern Elders Council, Sunday Sun gathered, might not be unconnected with the drama that played out during the last meeting of Northern Elders Forum held in Kaduna on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 under the leadership of Ambassador Yusuf Sule Maitama. The NEF had written to the Northern Traditional Council for a joint meeting to discuss the state of insecurity, unemployment and poverty in the country, and the north in particular. The letter dated December 2, 2013 was written by the Chairman of the Elders’ Forum, Ambassador Maitama, and it was entitled, Request for the Gracious Approval of His Royal Eminence to Hold a Joint Meeting of Northern Elders Forum (NEF), and the Council of Northern Traditional Rulers.
However, a sharp disagreement ensued when a top security Chief represented by General Sarki Yaki Bello (Retd), Governors of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda, his Niger State counterpart, Muazu Aliyu Babangida, represented by his deputy, Ahmed Musa Ibeto, and Kaduna State’s Mukhtar Ramalan Yero stormed the venue of the meeting without a formal invitation.
Consequently, some officials of the elders’ forum requested that the uninvited guests be walked out of the meeting, but some elders opposed the motion, insisting that the three governors and the representative of the security chief should be allowed to attend the meeting. While some members of the elders’ forum felt that the embarrassment meted out to the concerned officials was unwarranted, those on the other side of the fence saw their intrusion as an insult to the group. After a prolonged disagreement, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, was said to have politely walked the representative of the security Chief and the three governors out of the meeting on the insistence of the elders before Maitama was given the go-ahead to read the letter to the audience.
Sunday Sun gathered that the formation of NEC as a parallel body to the NEF was the fallout of the drama that ensued during the meeting. Deputy leader of the NEF, Dr. Paul Unongo, an elder statesman from Benue State, told Sunday Sun that the invasion of the meeting by the security chief’s emissary and the governors was most insulting to the elders because they came as uninvited guests. “When we organized the meeting based on the letter we had written to the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar , we decided to come to Kaduna. But on arrival, we saw people we didn’t invite. We saw government delegations and governors. And strangely, they are governors from mainly one political party. We also saw some security personnel. We suspected that this was a very unusual development. Why the huge presence of government, a political party and security men? We felt that this was a discussion between fathers and children.
So we felt it was funny,” Unongo said.
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