"The 486 people arrested in Abia are not Boko haram,stop arresting Northerners"-President of Arewa Youths warns South-East Governors

After the arrest of 486 suspected Boko Haram terrorists on the 15th of June in Abia State, the President of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum(AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, told Punch they are not Boko Haram members..

“This gives us a lot of worry. Are these South-East governors or whoever is at the helms of affairs doing this in the interest of this country or to cause more hatred for our people, so that the country will break up?Those who are acting out this script of disintegration are not helping this country, especially at this challenging period.We are not in support of Boko Haram or their bomb attacks. We are saying that innocent citizens should not suffer because some evil-minded people come from their area. I can tell you that those who were arrested in Abia are not Boko Haram members.We had a case where about 500 people arrested in Lagos. I intervened and on getting to the force headquarters, we discovered that most of them were innocent and they were released.We are not saying security agencies should not do their work, but they should not go about arresting hundreds of people just because they are looking for one or two suspects.”

If you recall, they were being transported in over 33 Hiace Hummer buses at night when soldiers intercepted them ,and when interrogated,they said they were going to look for work...Today, it was revealed that a major Boko Haram wanted figure was among the group..

This comes after MASSOB warned that if any bomb goes off in the South -east, they will bring down Nigeria