The Coalition of Indigenous Middle Belt Ethnic Organisations (CIMBO) has claimed that over 400 Indigenous ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt with an estimated population of over 40 million people are marginalised.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Kaduna, the group asked President Bola Tinubu to give the country and the people a new lease of life.

Chairman Timothy Gandu said the marginalised ethnic groups cut across Adamawa, Benue, Gombe, Kaduna, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Taraba and fringes of other northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Gandu said:

“While some Nigerians are marking the nation’s independence with fanfare, the ethnic groups of the Middle-Belt are groaning under the suffocating weight of internal domination, exploitation and marginalization derivable from the political structure called indirect rule that was left behind by the British.

“The British in 1958, two years before the political independence of Nigeria, got “the Minorities Commission Report”, which was written with a view to granting the “Minorities” as the Middle-Belt was called, the right to have regions or a region of its own.

“It is on record that Dr. J.M. Muffet, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and the British government connived and denied the Middle-Belt a region separate from the North.

“In a similar vein in 1963, when the Mid-West region was created, once again, the Middle-Belt was denied a region.

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