The Executive Vice-Chairman/CEO Kaduna State Peace Commission, Dr. Saleh Momale, has said that the indigeneship/citizenship dichotomy in Nigeria has become a cancer that would destroy the country if not quickly addressed.
Addressing the 2021 Citizen Summit on National Integration, Peace and Security, organised by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Kaduna state chapter, Momale, who was represented by the Permanent Commissioner of the Commission, Hajiya Khadijah Hawajah Gambo, said there was a need to forestall another civil war as ethnic and religious diversities have been taken to the extreme.
The guest speaker blamed the elite for the apparent division everywhere, noting that everyone is angry with the grievances bottled up. She, however, called for a national talk, which she said Nigerians have run away from for too long, saying: “We need to air out the grievances in a fair, just atmosphere to lead to negotiation and agreement to live together in Nigeria to respect one another as citizens irrespective of population.
In their separate addresses at the summit, the NIPR National President, Mukhtar Sirajo and the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Mr. Samuel Aruwan both stressed the misuse of national diversity, which is supposed to be Nigeria’s richness.
They both posited that today’s discussions and activities are often associated with sentiments based on geopolitical location, tribe, religion and region and loss of national identity because of over alienation to indigene/citizens dichotomy.
Kaduna State Director of National Orientation Agency, (NOA), Alhaji Galadima Zubairu in his remarks, said “lack of documentation of our own history and happenings by ourselves; allowing and giving preferences to alien literature that comes from myopic minds and short-sighted personnel, will continually give a negative picture of our state fueling crisis in our society, hence such should be avoided”.
