FAAN, CBN relocation: Arewa youths, women support Tinubu government

By Hannah Nathan, Warri

The Arewa Consultative Youth and Women Forum, or ACYWF, has called the protests needless as the controversy surrounding the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s (FAAN) headquarters and some of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) divisions moving from Abuja to Lagos continues.

According to a reliable source, the action was attacked by the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, and several northern organizations, particularly the Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations (JACNYA), who labelled it as a calculated attempt to further underdevelop the country’s northern regions.

The move of the FAAN headquarters to Lagos, according to JACNYA, “is an obvious infringement of the federal character concept entrenched inside the constitution.”

ACYWF, however, dissociated itself from the complaints and the demonstrations in a counter statement that was made accessible on Tuesday.

Alhaji Adamu Mohammed Matazu, the National President of ACYWF, signed the statement.

The Forum stated that the administration led by President Bola Tinubu should be applauded for its current efforts to modernize the aviation industry.

Additionally, they pleaded with Senator Hadi Sirika, the former minister of aviation, to abstain from President Tinubu’s administration and let it implement any policies and programs it saw fit to revitalize and reorganize the government’s departments, agencies, and ministries.

The organization declared, “We read with great dismay how some of our people have chosen to minimize matters of national significance, such as the Federal Airports Authority’s relocation.

“What we have not yet understood is what they stand to gain in all of these. We have a plethora of issues begging for regional emergency and attention.

“We are faced with insecurity, banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency across our land.

“We have countless IDP centres that should rather bother us on how to relocate them to their ancestral homes.

“It would have been a good discourse if our Northern elders were talking to the President on how to relocate these IDPs, create rehabilitation centres for the victims of attacks, bring humanitarian interventions to the people, create more empowerment for the people and get some of the moribund cottage industries and factories in the north to work again.

“The last time we checked, Lagos was still part of Nigeria, and most of the government infrastructures domiciled in Lagos are doing well. It would have been a different thing if FAAN was moved to Benin Republic or Niger.

“If moving FAAN to Lagos will bring the desired reform and change the face of the aviation industry for the betterment of all Nigerians, we the youths and women leaders from the North are fully in support of it.

“We believe in one Nigeria, and we believe in the progress and development of this nation.

“We don’t have two countries. Some of us haven’t gone out of this country before, not to talk of acquiring two citizenship. So, we must believe in Nigeria and support the Nigeria project,” the Forum declared.

ACYWF further stated that “the recent increase in kidnap cases in the city centre of the Federal Capital Territory should be of great concern to everyone.

“If kidnappers could visit Army Estate in Abuja and conveniently kidnap their victims, then they could attack anywhere in Abuja.”

The Forum claimed that Sirika wasted the chance to leave his mark in gold.