Igbo youth groups under the aegis of the Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL) have concluded plans to carry out a 2-million-man-march in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
The march scheduled for 5th June 2023 will enable the groups to press home its resolution that the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Uzor Kalu is the authentic consensus candidate of the people of South East for the position of the Senate President of the 10th Assembly.
Rising from their general meeting in Owerri on Sunday, COSEYL in a communique resolved that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) should zone the Senate President’s position to South East for fairness, equity and justice.
The communique which was jointly endorsed by the President General of the Igbo youth groups, Goodluck Ibem, Ndubuisi Uche Secretary and Okey Nwaoru, Publicity secretary respectively, equally called on President Bola Tinubu to release the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu to attend to medical treatment.
They said: “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is seriously sick and needs urgent and better medical treatment by his doctors who know his medical history and knows better how to treat him for a better medical result. This is pertinent to help reduce youth restiveness and insecurity in the South East”.
The groups urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on insurgency, terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and other violent crimes in the nation.
On the issue of insecurity, they described it as very important to be resolved urgently so that farmers can go back to the farm to cultivate and harvest crops for human consumption.
They said: “Hunger kills faster than bullets. Food security is important to sustain human existence”.
They advised the leadership of the All Progressive Congress to zone the position of the Senate President to the South East geopolitical zone adding that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu the current Senate Chief Whip is the consensus candidate of the people of South East.
The youth groups urged President Tinubu to prevail on Petroleum marketers to stop the arbitrary increase of fuel prices, emphasising that its effect is already causing untold hardship for the people.
They said: “The sudden removal of fuel subsidy has led to hyper-Inflation and increase in fuel from N240 to N700 per litre and increase in other petroleum products which has resulted in increase in prices of goods and services. Nigerians are currently facing untold hardship and we urge the President to put measures in place to stop arbitrary increase of prices of petroleum products, hoarding and other sharp practices by petroleum marketers”.
They also demanded that the Federal Government should liberalize the petroleum sector to enable more investors to come into the sector to build refineries for the production of fuel and other petroleum products.
This they noted will lead to healthy competition and reduction of prices of petroleum products which will improve the Nigerian economy.
