The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has lamented the scourge of banditry, kidnapping and other criminalities in the North, which has left families bereaved and communities devastated.

Speaking at the 78th National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the Forum on Wednesday at its secretariat in Kaduna, ACF Chairman, Chief Mamman Osuman, SAN, said the North continues to lose lives to “evil criminals, psychopaths, gangsters, bandits, marauders and terrorists,” in addition to natural causes and disasters.

“This is an uncommon and trouble-ridden time when politics, unimaginable vicissitudes, treachery, crimes and environmental disasters are devastating our people. We have also lost children, middle-aged men and women, and the aged, not only to natural causes, floods and drowning, but also to evil criminals,” Osuman said.

He called for introspection, vigilance, and unity of purpose among families and communities in the region, urging them not to “sit on the fence or like the Ostrich, hide its head in the sand under the delusive pretext that it sees nothing.”

The chairman, while paying tribute to eminent northern leaders recently lost to death, including former President Muhammadu Buhari, Justice Mohammed Uwais, Prof. Jubril Aminu, Chief Audu Ogbe and Alhaji Aminu Dantata, led members in a one-minute silence in their honour.

Osuman stressed that the Forum remains non-partisan, but committed to the mission of safeguarding the North’s interests within a united and indivisible Nigeria.

The NEC also discussed preparations for the 25th anniversary of the ACF slated for October, as well as long-standing issues such as the Ette boundary crisis.

The session featured a presentation on the “State of the Nation” and culminate in a communiqué to be issued by the Forum’s Publicity Secretary, Prof. Tukur Baba. (Vanguard)