The Directorate of Security Services (DSS) has invited leadership of the Food, Cattle Dealers’ Union over the said blockade of food and cattle coming down south. The Amalgamated Union of Foodstuff, Cattle Dealers of Nigeria (AUFCDN) recently stopped movement of food to southern Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) has reacted to the aggression saying it is a wake-up call for the South West while another socio-cultural group from the South West, the Agbekoya called the move a cold war against the South West.

The Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, its South-East counterpart, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), among others, yesterday, condemned stoppage of the supply of foodstuffs and cattle to the south from the north by the AUFCDN.

However, the AUFCDN has vowed to continue the food blockade in spite of the risk of economic loss.

An official of the association, Awwalu Aliyu who spoke to the media said aim of the action is not to starve southerners but to protest the killing and destruction of properties belonging to northerners.

Aliyu added that it is better to lose their foodstuffs than losing their lives. “It would be better to lose the food items than to lose lives,” he said.

“You’re talking about losing goods, which one is better to lose a life or to lose property?
Losing property is better than losing a live.

“We prefer and our people will prefer to lose those farm items or goods than to continue losing their lives. If you are alive, you can plant another thing, you can rear another cattle. But if you’re dead you can’t go to the farm.

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We do not want to destroy anybody. we do not want to kill anybody.
The number of Yorubas and Ibos that reside in Kano and Kaduna alone is far more than the number of Northerners in the entire South West, South South and South East.

“Also the investment of Yorubas and Igbos in Kano and Kaduna running into billions of Naira is more than the entire investments of Northerners in the South West, South East and South South if you remove Dangote.

“Our people are only petty traders, shoe shiners, fingernail cutters, wheel barrow pushers, okada riders and so on.

“Our people in the South don’t have what Southerners in the North have. They have farmlands, buildings and a lot of properties that run into billions; we do not intend to touch a needle out of it. We do not intend to destroy anybody’s property, what we want is to have our people protected from being killed,” he said.