The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) has described the federal government of Muhammadu Buhari as ‘unacceptable’ in its response to Nigerian citizens trapped in crisis-torn Sudan.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that Buhari’s government had on Friday stated that it can’t evacuate Nigerian students from Sudan at the moment.
The Federal Government made the announcement amid calls to evacuate Nigerians trapped in Sudan’s ongoing crisis.
Since the fighting began last Saturday between forces loyal to Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at least 300 people have died.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Chairman/CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, stated that while the Nigerian Mission in Sudan and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have put plans in place to evacuate Nigerian students and other Nigerian citizens stranded in Sudan, the tense situation makes any flights dangerous and impossible at this time.
In a statement sent to WITHIN NIGERIA on Saturday, AYCF National President Yerima Shettima expressed concern about the fate of Nigerians trapped in Sudan due to ongoing war and killings.
He said:
It is totally unacceptable that while several countries were evacuating their citizens from Sudan, ours is the only African nation giving excuses.
With thousands of Nigerians in Sudan, especially male and female Northern students being the majority, we reject the lame excuse given in a letter by the Nigeria Embassy about the difficulty of evacuating our sons and daughters. No Northerner in this country is at peace since the killings and arson started in Sudan.
We are aware that the Sudanese government had already warned that the situation would escalate, and gave 72 hours ultimatum for countries whose citizens are either doing business or schooling in that country to be evacuated. We cannot fathom why all we get at the moment is the excuse by our Embassy that doing so would be difficult. What held us from taking advantage of the 72 hours ultimatum in the first place?
It is abundantly clear that lives are now at stake, especially for our Northern brothers and sisters schooling in Sudan, considering the escalation of this war, that involves the use of heavy-duty incendiary.
As a group, we wish to make it categorically clear that if our innocent Northern brothers and sisters schooling in Sudan get killed in this war, we shall hold the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan accountable.
We wish to emphasize that on no account should these young and innocent Nigerians be left to their own devices, because they have a fatherland that has the constitutional and legal responsibility to protect the lives of citizens anywhere they are on this planet.
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