Coalition of Northern Groups (CNGs) has urged Northern Elders Forum (NEF) to review the political ties and alliance between the North and South-West.

It accuses South-West political leaders of conspiracy of silence over the recent #RevolutionNow protest against the President Muhammadu Buhari government.

CNG also asked President Buhari to reflect on the state of the nation and take genuine steps to address mounting national grievances.

In a statement signed in Abuja, yesterday, by its spokesman, Mr Abdul-Azeez Sulaiman, the northern groups said political, cultural, religious and traditional leaders from South West have been silent regarding the protest.

The groups said: “It is quite unfortunate that South-West, which has been the single major beneficiary of the Buhari administration should also be in the forefront of efforts to discredit and bring him down.”

Addressing the president directly, the group said: “We also wish to ask the president if in all honesty he still considers the South western players as  true friends who are genuinely desirous of his success. He should ask himself if the treatment he is receiving from them is worth the attention he had given South West.”

It said northern leaders and elite believe that the current political alignment with the South West “is not paying and it never will,” adding: “The vital task at this point is for northern political leadership to renegotiate its current alliance with South West, which has never been North’s political ally. The alliance is already turning out to be unhealthy.”

The groups called on northern elders and leaders “to review the region’s position by realigning with our traditional political friends which had served the whole nation for decades before the coming of this unholy and unprofitable union with the South Western block.

“This has become necessary with the way the South West is going about the current friendship by being more openly antagonistic to northern interests even while they are the major beneficiaries of the Buhari administration.

Sun