By James Ezema
Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) has urged the Federal Government to prevail on its security agents that detained its national chairman, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, to release him or charge him to court in line with the Rule of Law stance of the Yar’Adua administration, alleging that the AYCF leader has been denied access to his lawyers.

The group had in a statement, jointly signed by its national secretary and Lagos State chairman, Mohamed Kudu Abubakar and Adamu Yahaya, respectively, roundly condemned the action of the security operates.

Also, human rights group, Nigerian Renaissance Movement (NRM) in a statement signed by its president, Comrade Agba Justin Jalingo, said the arrest of the AYCF national chairman amounted to a return of the dark days of military dictatorship where law abiding citizens were clamped into detention without reason.

AYCF said, “Alhaji Yerima, in over a decade of activism, has remained consistent in his call for equity and justice across the country.

He has contributed immensely to the ongoing constitutional engineering process in the country and we do not expect this kind of barbaric behaviour from agents of a government that profess to believe in the rule of law.”

According to the statement, “When security agents return to military tactics in a democratic government, it becomes very worrisome and indicative of the Golgotha our nation is headed. We believe that if nothing is done by well meaning Nigerians to halt this trend, the nation may yet be headed for crises.

“We condemn these incessant arrests and detention of patriots who are working relentlessly to bridge yawning gaps and ensure the peaceful co-existence of different sections of the country.”

Furthermore, it said, “If the security agencies are aggrieved by citizens’ conducts, there are enshrined democratically acceptable means of seeking redress other than primitive Gestapo tactics reminiscent of the dark days of military dictatorship.”