The Delta State government said there are three categories of northerners in the state.
The declaration may not be unconnected with the ban on commercial motorcycles and scrap metal scavenging in restricted areas across the state.
Secretary to the State Government, Dr Kingsley Emu, who disclosed this in an interview with journalists shortly after a meeting with critical stakeholders in the state, said: “There are those who lived here and who have always lived with us here and have their children and their businesses here and are known to us. There are those who have been dislodged from other states due to a lot of crises in the north who have come here.
“The third is the very violent people from Niger Republic who are not even documented and they go ahead and do some terrible things that are ascribed to our brothers.”
While saying the ban is not a witch-hunt for any ethnic group in the country, he stressed that Nigerians must subject themselves to the rules and regulations of the area where they live.
Emu said the essence of the meeting was to strategise for effective operations, implementation and enforcement of the ban on commercial motorcycles in restricted areas, as well as to properly brief and hand over the gazette to critical stakeholders to be abreast of development and also educate their people.
According to him, commercial motorcycles remained banned in the capital territory, and in most areas of Oshimili South and Oshimili North local government areas.
He pointed out that the state government had listed all the streets where they (commercial motorcyclists) should not ply, noting that they have become a source of concern to Deltans and residents not only in the state capital but across the entire length and breadth of the state, even as he said that they have been warned to comply.
“Nigerians are allowed to live anywhere they like so long as they are of good behaviour,” he stressed.
On scrap metal scavengers, Emu said: “We also announced at the session some form of registration process for iron scavengers. Their activities are banned until we regularise the procedures for registration.
“We have also set up a sub-committee headed by the Attorney General’s Office that will put together a registration document that will act as a template for the entire state and until then, there will be no iota of activities on scrap irons.
“We shall, by next week, after we receive the document, make some further proclamations on how we need to proceed. We want to institutionalise the process of enforcement.
“Be rest assured that our people will go to bed with their eyes closed; be rest assured that this exercise will work; it is not a witch-hunt for any ethnic group but we shall make sure that we enforce this one; it must be enforced.”
In their separate remarks at the meeting, the Sariki of Asaba, Alhaji Ibrahim Baba Gero; a Special Assistant to the Governor, Alhaji Muktar Usman; and the chairman of Delta State Muslims Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Auwalu Turkur, said they would continue to support the policies and programmes of the state government.
The stakeholders’ meeting was attended by all security agencies, comprising the military, police, NSCDC, and DSS.