Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, has dismissed a lecturer for altering students’ results. The name of the lecturer and the department in which he was teaching was not immediately made known.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Abdullahi Zuru, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto today, Saturday, but declined to mention the affected lecturer’s full details.
Zuru said “that management of the university took that drastic action to serve as deterrent to others.
“The action is to remind academic and non- academic staffers of what might happen if they try such an act. We will not hesitate to wield the big stick on any staff found wanting for any infractions in this regard.
“The university has no fewer than 30,000 students and the guidelines are there for all to follow. We will not compromise the set standards.”
Professor Abdullahi Zuru cautioned students against examination malpractice and vices, stressing that the university would not tolerate any ill behaviour.
He said that students must conduct both their academic and extracurricular activities in line with laid down rules and regulations or be sanctioned accordingly. [myad]
Union Bank has upgraded three branches in Rivers State with a promised commitment to providing simpler, smarter banking services to its teeming customers.
The new branches located in Bori, Kingsway Road and Aba Road areas of the State.
The bank used the occasion to also launch its networking and empowerment programme for young professionals and entrepreneurs and to host customers in celebration of the bank’s 100th year anniversary.
Speaking to customers at the anniversary gala event, the Chief Executive Officer of Union Bank, Emeka Emuwa said: “we are very proud of our 100-year-old heritage as this is not a feat easily achieved. We are however also looking forward and preparing for the next 100 years.
“At Union Bank, we are very passionate about our customers and we are committed to ensuring they have access to the best banking service possible. This has prompted us to equip our branches with state-of-the-art infrastructure. Our mobile and internet banking applications are also one of the best in the country as we strive to ensure our customers experience service excellence across the country.”
Also speaking during the launch of the upgraded branches, Joe Mbulu, Transformation Director, Union Bank said that the overhauling of the branches was as a result of the bank’s firm commitment to ensuring that its customers have access to the best and most effective banking solutions.
“We are providing the simpler and smarter way to bank through these improvements. It isn’t just a tagline for us, it is a promise – one which we will continue to keep.”
Among the stakeholders and government dignitaries at the occasion wwas the Chief of Staff to Government House, Engr. Chukwuemeka Woke who represented the Governor of Rivers State.
The Bank also launched an Elite Lounge at the Kingsway Road branch in Port Harcourt.
The Elite Lounge will provide value added banking benefits and a range of personalized banking services to Elite Banking customers of the bank.
Elite Banking customers also enjoy other benefits of the banking segment which includes having a dedicated Elite Associate/Relationship Manager dedicated to them, access to exclusive Elite Lounges as well as Priority Pass cards which grant customers access to 850 airport VIP lounges around the world. [myad]
Senator Dino Melaye of Kogi West Senatorial district has filed a lawsuit at the Federal high Court in Abuja seeking a court injunction to halt his recall from the Senate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had earlier this, week confirmed the receipt of a petition against Melaye from his constituents and promised to embark on the process of verifying over 188,000 signatures submitted to the commission. But today, Friday, Senator Melaye said he has started a court proceeding against INEC. He said via his Twitter handle: “I have filed my case against INEC today at the Federal High Court Abuja today.” He uploaded the scanned copies of the suit. [myad]
“The last two decades in Nigeria have witnessed the quickened retreat of the Nigerian elite to their ethnic and religious camps. I would like to emphasize the fact that this was essentially an elite phenomenon – unity and disunity are promoted by the elite to which the vast majority of the Nigerian people were only later conscripted.”
This was the lamentation as postulated by the Nigeria’s acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo when he addressed the Senior Course 39 as they graduated from the Armed Forces, Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna state today, Friday.
Professor Osinbajo acknowledged that the new generation of elite, of which he is one, are being paid for with taxpayers’ money, “and so we must be its foremost think-thank.”
He recalled that in the past few years, what elite had been churning out to members of the public are expressions such as Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities even as the elite also promote race and geopolitical zones such as Ndigbo people, Arewa people, the Yoruba people, South-South, North-East, South-West, North-West and South-East and other parochial description that were hitherto unknown.
According to the acting President, the rise of ethnic chauvinism rode on the wings of several agitations, adding that the narrative of most agitations centres around alleged marginalization and fears of dominance of one faith over the other.
“In the 2015 elections, the ruling party repeatedly tried to cast the opposition as a party of Islamists determined to islamize Nigeria. The expression Janjaweed party took root.
“Most ethnic agitations are centered around getting a larger share of the national cake or more favoured placement in the food chain because they were essentially elite claims: the vast majority of the populations of the ethnic groups that win some concession or the other never really benefit.
“So, the mere fact that a South-South person became President did not necessarily translate to prosperity for the tribe, neither was it the case when a President from the North-West emerged, nor one from the South-West.
“Aside from a few individual beneficiaries of some appointments or the other, there is usually nothing to show for the ethnic group of those who emerge in Nigeria’s numerous ethnic contests for power. Yet, the contests of the tribes are heightened by the elite, usually for personal political or commercial ends.
“When you hear a person say that my tribe has been marginalized usually what he is saying is appoint me. The ethnic card is an effective bargaining tool.
“A major drawback of ethnic chauvinism is the way that it is used to mask wrongdoing and promote impunity. Notice that when people are charged with looting public funds they quickly find a counter narrative. It is because I am Yoruba, Fulani or Igbo; or the Christians or Muslims are after me.
“Appointments in the public service are no longer even judged on merit. The question is how many are from my own ethnic group. A terrible affliction, when you consider that what we are looking for are men and women of integrity and talent to run our economy and create a future for our children. Why is that when we want to win at football we don’t ask which ethnic group the players are from? But perhaps at its most extreme and dangerous are hate-filled agitations for secession or autonomy.
“In the past few weeks we have as a nation witnessed the escalation of such agitations usually couched in deliberately intemperate and provocative language. The reckless deployment of hate speech and the loud expressions of prejudice and hate, name calling of those of other ethnicities and faiths is a new and destructive evil in our public discourse. But even more divisive words, expressions, and actions calculated to create fear and uncertainty have also been freely used.
“Young people in the South-Eastern states under the aegis IPOB, issued a stay at home order as part of actions to prove support for their agitations for secession. In the Northern states young people under the aegis of the Arewa youth, issued an ultimatum to Igbos living in the Northern states to vacate before the 1st of October.
“The problem with hate-filled and divisive speech is that they tap into some of the basest human instincts, bringing up irrational suspicions, fear, anger, and hatred and ultimately mindless violence. People who have lived together as neighbours and friends suddenly begin to see each other as mortal enemies.
“The tensions that led to the killing of over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus considered Tutsi sympathizers in the Rwandan genocide, were roused by hate media. The most notorious was the Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC), which became immensely popular as a young, hip alternative to the official voice of the government. It played popular music, and encouraged the public to phone-in and participate in radio broadcasts. Amongst its listeners, RTLMC attracted the unemployed youth and Interhamwe (Canadian NGO). The station also became notorious for its covert and overt naming of Tutsi individuals who it claimed deserved to be killed.
“General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN peacekeeping operation in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, said: “Simply jamming [the] broadcasts and replacing them with messages of peace and reconciliation would have had a significant impact on the course of events.
“Fortunately the purveyors of this tragic hate media did not escape unpunished. The ICC in Arusha eventually sentenced the owners of the hate radio stations and newspapers to long prison terms.
“Some of our youth groups urging secession already are deploying hate media, using radio and social media. The language on those media are inciting, provocative and insulting to the individuals who are named, and to the beliefs of others.
“While we must remain irrevocably committed to freedom of expression and the tenets of a free press, we must draw the line between freedom that conduces to healthy democracy and that which threatens and endangers the entire democratic enterprise. It is an important balance that we must strike. Failure in any way will be tragic.
“The truth is that our nation and national unity is worth preserving and protecting. We are the pre-eminent power in Africa today in terms of population, size of our markets, natural resources and economy.
“We are a factor in the geopolitics of the world and no one can ignore a nation-state that is home to one in every four black persons. Smaller is weaker not stronger today.
Your Excellency, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, history and experience has shown that countries can alter their destinies. Italy, India and Nigeria – to use just three examples, share one thing in common: at one point early in their existence people questioned their viability as nation-spaces; spoke of them in terms of being no more than mere geographical expressions.
“Indeed not many Nigerians seem to know that the often quoted line about Nigeria being a “mere geographical expression” originally applied to Italy. It was the German statesman Klemens Von Metternich who dismissively summed up Italy as a mere geographical expression exactly a century before Nigeria came into being as a country. Churchill describing India said it was no more a nation than the equator, (which is just an imaginary geographical line).
“But what fate saddles a country with, and what that country makes of itself, we have since learned, can be two very different things. India for example has over the last couple of decades built itself into a technology and software powerhouse, and has also made impressive strides in nuclear and space technology. It has successfully created alternative narratives to a narrative of ethnic and religious division.
“Italy on its own part has made its mark on the world in fashion and in automobiles; so that when people think of it today they are more likely to think of its venerable cuisine and fashion houses than its still-very-real fault lines.
“What the stories of these countries tell us is that we do not need to be a perfect union before we can be a great country and there is no better example of that than the United States of America – a country that thrives, not in spite of its diversity, but because of it.
“It is my respectful submission that the responsibility for a similar kind of greatness here in Nigeria lies in our hands as the country’s elite. We must rise above unproductive ethnic and religious sentiment.
“We must develop the emotional intelligence required to cope and adapt in a swiftly and constantly changing world. We must adopt a global mindset that seeks to learn from the experiences of other countries, far and near, so that we do not waste valuable time repeating mistakes that we should have learned to avoid.
“One of those lessons is that today’s wars never really end. This should be a sobering lesson to us all in Nigeria, as we contend with the forces who seek to stoke violence and bloodshed in our country.
“Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and closer home, the Central African Republic, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo; these wars have raged for years. Some of them have in fact gone on so long that they have been tagged as ‘forgotten wars’. Contemporary wars, we have learnt, are extremely easy to start, but difficult to end.
“Another lesson is that in the 21st century the theatre of war is increasingly shifting to cyberspace. Terrorist organizations, purveyors of hate speech, all of these and many more who seek to destabilize the world are busy staking out territory on the Internet, and scoring significant victories and conquests for themselves. As members of the Armed Forces, with a mandate to protect Nigeria from all forms of internal and external aggression, you will increasingly be judged as much on the basis of your success online as on your successes on the conventional battlefield.
“The Internet has altered or disrupted every industry we know of: Politics and Elections, Business and Commerce, Governance; and is changing the very nature of warfare. Websites teaching on how to make and use IEDs and other explosives are numerous.
“Today a great deal of the threats facing Nigeria are being nurtured and cultivated in the vast spaces of the Internet. The rumblings of secession, the dangerous quit ultimatums to ethnic groups, the radio stations and blogs that spew divisive speech and exploit our fault lines; all of these are now to be found online.
“This means that the military and its officers and men must itself devote resources and talent to these new battlefields, where mindless verdicts on the continued unity and existence of Nigeria are daily being delivered.
“As you make your way out of the hallowed halls of this institution, into the ‘field’, as you would describe it, you have huge roles to play in the way Nigeria turns out in the years and decades ahead.
“Even though the days of military rule are now well behind us as a nation, the role of the military is still as critical as ever – and not just in the traditional areas of deterring threats and protecting lives and property.
“The Military of the 21st century must realize that it has a role to play in supplying reinforcement to the good side in the clash of ideas that today define the world: ideas of moderation, tolerance and sensibleness versus ideas of extremism, xenophobia, and terror. The Boko Haram terrorism is a perfect example of the types of scourges that the world faces.
“The battle is not just to defeat the terrorists, the greater battle is to defeat the ideology and mindset that feeds the madness and to cut off its oxygen, money and publicity.” [myad]
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) have waded into the legal tussle raging between Etisalat and a consortium of 13 Nigerian Banks over a syndicated loan of about US$1.2 billion granted the telecom company by the banks.
The decision by the CBN and the NCC to intervene was said to have been made in order prevent job losses and asset stripping.
CBN Spokesman, Isaac Okorafor who confirmed the development to news men today, Friday, said: “although it should ordinarily not be the role of a regulator to decide how individual bad loans are resolved, the CBN believes that Etisalat is a systemically important telecommunications company with over 20 million subscribers that if not well handled, may have negative implications for the banking system itself.”
He said that the CBN and NCC, sensing that banks might go ahead in the usual way and downsize the company’s over 4,000 staff, reached an agreement to intervene and implore the consortium of banks to be reassess its position in dealing with Etisalat.
Okorafor described some media reports insinuating high-handedness by CBN on the issue as “the height of mischief and insensitivity” explaining that the collaborative move by the regulators was aimed at preventing job losses and asset stripping and to ensure that Etisalat remains in business and is able to pay back the loans.
According to him, the CBN and the NCC, in the coming days, will meet with the syndicate of banks and the IHS Towers, the tower managers and the equipment suppliers, in order to achieve what he termed “a win-win outcome” for all stakeholders.
It will be recalled that Etisalat has been embroiled with a consortium of 13 Nigerian Banks that gave it a facility of about US$1.2 billion, on which the company has been unable to meet its repayment obligations in line with agreed terms of the facility.
Given the inability of Etisalat to come to an acceptable agreement with the banks, the largest shareholder in the company, Dubai-based Mubadala Development Company of the United Arab Emirates, has now pulled out of the company as well as the ongoing negotiations, leaving only their local partners, led by Hakeem Belo-Osagie, to carry the burden.
It was based on the attempt of the banks to take over the company that the financial and telecommunications regulators have moved in to intervene and forestall down-sizing and asset stripping. [myad]
The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, has advocated a special court to try cases of kidnapping that has been on the rise in recent time.
The IGP said that the call for special court for kidnappers is necessary as members the public feel that kidnappers are not being prosecuted enough.
The IGP, in an interactive session with a group of civil society organisations under the auspices of “The Situation Room’’ in Abuja said the special court should be an urgent measure to punish the kidnappers.
The IGP said that with the creation of special task force squadron on terrorism, a lot of kidnappers have been arrested and that the force had 2, 000 suspected kidnappers across the country.
He reiterated the force’s commitment to apprehending the notorious and wanted kidnapper from Benue commonly called “Ghana,” adding that his days were numbered.
The police boss thanked Nigerians for their support and called for more collaboration to curb crime.
The convener of the Situation Room, Nwankwo, called for the prosecution of kidnappers to serve as deterrent to others.
He said that ‘kidnapping is a serious national issue that needs to be tackled urgently. [myad]
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has made it clear that the great challenge and the wonderful opportunity for this generation of the Nigerian elite is to build a new Nigeria out of the rubble of cynicism, division and suspicions.
He said that it is possible for the elite to build a new nation based on trust, consensus, love for one another and love for the country.
Speaking today, Friday, at the graduation of Senior Course 39 of the Nigerian Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji in Kaduna state, the acting President insisted that the new generation of elite must resolve to build a nation where the rulers do not steal the commonwealth, “where every Nigerian is safe to live and work, where the State takes responsibility for the security of each and every Nigerian, where the state knows every Nigerian by name and can find and locate each one of us, a Nigeria where the Ibo or Ijaw man can live peacefully in Sokoto, and the Fulani man can live peacefully in the Niger Delta.”
Professor Osinbajo admitted that building is an act of the human will as well as a practical, routine, sometimes dirty, sometimes frustrating enterprise.
“This is why no great nation was ever built overnight or without the sacrifice of group compromise, the pain of not getting all you want, the feeling that your ethnic or religious persuasion could be treated better, that is the sacrifice of nation- building, give and take; a little here, a little there. No one group can have it all.
“Our leadership must be courageous. Courage means willingness to be abused and insulted by our own people. The humiliation of being heckled for making concessions is the price of the privilege of leadership. “The greatest leaders are those prepared to take unpopular decisions or make compromises unpopular with their constituencies but crucial for long term goals.
“Yes, they may be unpopular in the short run but their greatness eternally is guaranteed. Nelson Mandela after years in prison and decades of the inhumanity and oppression of apartheid, to the shock and amazement of his black constituency preached reconciliation. An unpopular move in the short term but no contemporary political figure is as revered as he is even in death.
“The opportunity to go down in history as builders of the new Nigeria, now beckons. I trust that you will heed its call.”
Four Arab states that imposed a boycott on Qatar have issued an ultimatum to Doha to close Al Jazeera television, cut ties with Iran, shut a Turkish base and pay reparations.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have sent a 13-point list of demands apparently aimed at dismantling their tiny but wealthy neighbor’s two decade-old interventionist foreign policy which has incensed them.
Qatar did not immediately comment, but Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani had said on Monday Qatar would not negotiate with the four states until economic, diplomatic and travel ties cut this month were restored.
The countries that imposed the sanctions accuse Qatar of funding terrorism, fomenting regional unrest and drawing too close to their enemy Iran. Qatar rejects those accusations and says it is being punished for straying from its neighbors’ backing for authoritarian hereditary and military rulers.
The uncomprimising demands leave little prospect for a quick end to the biggest diplomatic crisis for years between Sunni Arab Gulf states, regional analysts said.
“The demands are so aggressive that it makes it close to impossible to currently see a resolution of that conflict,” Olivier Jakob, a strategist at Switzerland-based oil consultancy Petromatrix, said.
Ibrahim Fraihat, Conflict Resolution Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, forecast a prolonged stand-off.
Qatar would reject the demands as a “non-starter”, he said, and its neighbors had already escalated as far as they were likely to go. “Military action remains unlikely at the moment so the outcome after the deadline would be a political stalemate …”
Washington, which is a close military ally of countries on both sides of the dispute, had called for a resolution: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Qatar’s neighbors should make their demands “reasonable and actionable”.
TEN DAYS TO COMPLY
An official from one of the four nations, who gave details of the demands on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the offer would be “void” unless Qatar complied within 10 days.
The UAE has said sanctions could last for years. Qatar, the world’s richest country per capita, says the sanctions amount to a “blockade”, but it has ample reserves to weather the storm.
The dispute is a big test for the United States, which houses the headquarters of its Middle East air power and 11,000 troops at a large base in Qatar.
President Donald Trump has backed the sanctions, even as his Defense and State Departments have tried to remain neutral, resulting in mixed signals. Trump called Qatar a “funder of terrorism at a very high level”, only for his Pentagon to approve selling it $12 billion of warplanes five days later.
The most powerful country in the region to back the Qatari side in the dispute has been Turkey, whose President Tayyip Erdogan has his roots in an Islamist political party similar to movements that Qatar has backed in the region. Days after the sanctions were imposed, Turkey rushed through legislation to send more troops to its base in Qatar as a sign of support.
Defense Minister Fikri Isik rejected the demand to close the base, saying it would represent interference in Ankara’s relations with Doha. Turkey might bolster its presence instead.
“Strengthening the Turkish base would be a positive step in terms of the Gulf’s security,” he said. “Re-evaluating the base agreement with Qatar is not on our agenda.”
Qatar has used its vast wealth over the past decade to exert influence abroad, backing factions in civil wars and revolts across the Middle East. It infuriated Egypt’s present rulers and Saudi Arabia by backing a Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo that ruled for a year until it was deposed by the army in 2013.
Qatar’s state-funded satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera became hugely popular across the Middle East, but has long infuriated Arab governments used to exercising firm control over the media in their countries. Jazeera hit back at the closure order, calling it “nothing but an attempt to silence the freedom of expression in the region”.
STOP INTERFERING
The demands, handed to Qatar by mediator Kuwait, tell Qatar to stop interfering in the four nations’ domestic and foreign affairs and refrain from giving Qatari nationality to their citizens, the official from one of the sanctioning states said.
They also include severing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Jabhat Fateh al Sham, formerly al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, and the surrender of all designated terrorists on Qatari territory. Qatar denies it has relationships with terrorist groups or shelters terrorists.
It was ordered to scale down diplomatic relations with Iran, limit its commercial ties and expel members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Qatar denies they are there.
The sanctioning countries demanded Qatar pay them reparations for any damage or costs incurred due to Qatari policies. Compliance with the demands would be monitored, with monthly reports in the first year, then every three months the next year, then annually for 10 years, the official said.
Although Reuters was told about the contents of the ultimatum by an official from one of the sanctioning countries, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash accused Qatar of leaking the demands.
“There is a price for the years of plotting and there is a price to return to the neighborhood,” Gargash said on Twitter. “The leak (of demands) seeks to derail mediation.”
Qataris who spoke to Reuters described the demands as unreasonable, particularly the closure of Jazeera, which millions of Arabs see as an important outlet for voices willing to challenge the region’s authoritarian rulers, but which neighboring governments call a conduit for Islamist propaganda.
“Imagine another country demanding that CNN be closed,” 40-year-old Haseeb Mansour, who works for telecom operator Ooredoo, said.
“A LOT ON THE LIST”
Abdullah al-Muhanadi, a retired public sector worker shopping for groceries in Doha on Friday morning, said the boycott must be lifted before negotiations to resolve the dispute could start.
“There’s a lot on the list that is simply not true or unreasonable, so how can we comply?” he said. “There are no IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) elements in Qatar and the agreement with Turkey is a long-standing diplomatic agreement so we cannot ask them to leave.”
Qatar has only 300,000 citizens enjoying the riches produced by the world’s largest exports of liquefied natural gas. The rest of its 2.7 million people are foreign migrant workers, mostly manual laborers employed on vast construction projects that have crowned the tiny desert peninsula with skyscrapers as well as stadiums for the 2022 soccer world cup.
The sanctions have disrupted its main routes to import goods by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from big container ships docked in the United Arab Emirates. But it so far has avoided economic collapse by quickly finding alternative routes, and it says its huge financial reserves will meet any challenges.
Qatar says the sanctions have also brought personal hardship for its citizens who live in neighboring countries or have relatives there. The countries that imposed the sanctions gave Qataris two weeks to leave, which expired on Monday.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed the stability in the forex market and is hopeful that the move to ensure exchange rate convergence will soon yield dividend.
The Acting Director of the Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, who confirmed the development on behalf of the apex bank today Friday, is optimistic that the CBN’s goal of exchange rate convergence is fast becoming a reality.
He added that the CBN is committed to ensuring liquidity in the forex market.
He said that the apex bank had, today, allocated sum of $240 million to the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) for spot and forward deals.
He also confirmed the sale of forex to dealers in the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the market to meet the needs of low-end forex users, adding that
the $240 million released to the Retail SMIS included deals initiated in the course of the out-going week.
It will be recalled that the CBN, in its interventions last week, injected about $831.5 million in the inter-bank Forex market and released figures indicating that the Bank had boosted transactions at the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) segment of the market to the tune of $2.2bn.
Meanwhile, the naira continued to maintain its stability in the FOREX market, closing at an average of N365/$1 in the BDC segment of the market on Friday. [myad]
The Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF), a group that rose out of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has condemned what it called, the resurgence of desperate youth groups promoting ethno-regional identities and extremist positions from the different geo-political zones across the nation.
In a statement by the Director General, Salihu Mohammed Lukman, the group stressed the need to quickly put an end to the threat to the national unity as being promoted by such youth groups across the country.
PGF, which described itself as promoting an all-inclusive government, for the development of policies and programs that improve the life of every Nigerian citizen, regardless of ethnicity and religious orientation, said it is not comfortable with the present secessionist and separatist agitations promoting ethno-regional identity in the country.
It said that the sundry factional groups, claiming to represent different ethnic nationalities, are now sowing the seeds of disunity and promoting secessionist agenda in the nation.
“We decry and reject their activities in all intents and purposes. Acknowledging the rich diverse heritage of Nigeria as a country, the PGF particularly notes that the resurgence of desperate youth groups promoting ethno-regional identities and extremist positions from the different geo-political zones across the nation as currently experienced is a reflection of prevalent weak governance, economy and law enforcement system in Nigeria.”
The Forum stressed that the challenge before Nigerians today is to commit themselves to the unity of the country.
“We must create by all means necessary, a country that we can collectively call our home, irrespective of tongues and localities. This is a vision the APC as a party is committed to lead and for which the PGF is unapologetically and intrinsically loyal.These threats to national unity must cease totally and put away into history.
“While acknowledging that as a nation, we do have challenges, PGF believe that the resolution of those challenges rest with the development of our democracy and with it, the ascendency of structured processes of national consultations, negotiations and invariably agreements.
“Some of the challenges are highlighted in the accompanied PGF Position – There has to be a Nation First. As Governors elected under APC, we will work with our party leaders, the Federal Government and all Nigerians who are committed to democratic development all parts of the country to ensure unencumbered protection of lives of all citizens in every part of the territorial boundary of our nation.
“PGF therefore call for the rise of all Decent Voices across this country to speak up against the upsurge of some desperate irredentist movements across all ethnic groups and support the emergence of a stronger and virile unified Nigeria for us all.”
The Forum insisted that, regardless of the diverse identities of Nigeria, and under whatever differences, Nigeria would have to thrive, adding: “there has to be a nation first.” [myad]
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