In a bid to end insecurity and banditory ISSUES in Nigeria,Former PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday met with the Hausa– Fulani leaders in Southwest, Kogi and Kwara States in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
He called on Nigerians to stop the culture of “passing blame” and think of a lasting solution to the menace.
Chief Obasanjo stated this when he met with members of GAN Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria (GAFDAN) from the Southwest.
He noted that, the solutions to the nation’s security challenges should not be left to one person to address, adding that it is not what one man can tackle alone.
According to him, the solutions can come through collective efforts and not through “passing of blame” here or there.
He said the West African countries are worried about the security challenges in Nigeria, stressing if Nigeria they looked up to as big brother is unable to deal with her security issues, where would they run to for help if theirs hit home.
He said Nigerians must interrogate themselves about various ugly things happening around them.
The former President maintained that, Nigeria needs peace, security, harmony, wholesomeness, progress which require all hands to be on deck.
“There is criminality, there is insecurity and it has not been like that before. If this is what we have, what we wat to do at this meeting is find solutions to stop it.
“We want to have peace, we want to have security, we want to have harmony, we want to have wholesomeness, we want to have progress, how can we have these? We want to move Nigeria forward, irrespective of tribe, religion, ethnicity, trade, profession, where I come from, where you come from. How can we together move Nigeria forward? And there nobody else who will do all these for us, it is you, we, all of us here and all our brothers and sisters wherever they may be in Nigeria.
“It is not one man’s job or one person’s job or one group’sjob, it a job for all of us, all Nigerians and unless and until we see it that way, we should stop passing blame, everybody is wrong and everybody is right. Let us take what is right in one group and join it what is right in other group and throw away what is wrong in all the groups then we will move forward.
“Our brothers and sisters in West Africa are worried about our situation. They are wondering if Nigeria cannot manage her security, if Nigeria’s security is endangered, how can they look up to Nigeria who they normally see as big brother, that can be called upon to come and help them if they are in any type condrum so they are worried and we are here to assure them, to ssuage their worry to be able to say yes, we are Nigerians, we can deal and we will deal with our security problem and any other problem that we need to deal with.
“We will have positive measures that are measurable which we will put timeline to and which will be actions by individuals and groups and which we can follow and see what progress we are making and maybe before long, we can then have what I will call progress meeting to discuss what we have achieved, what is left to be achieved, where do we move to next? But we must have take away that will work for us individually and collectively.
“We don’t want what used to Nigeria before again. We want to discuss and we want to have realistic solutions to our problems.”
Meanwhile, in a communique jointly signed by former President Obasanjo and leader of the Hausa-Fulani delegation, Alhaji Sale Bayeri urged Nigerians to identify criminal Fulani herdsmen and non-herdsmen and expose them for the full wrath to take its place, saying same treatment must apply to other criminals from other ethnic groups.
Participants at the meeting therefore agreed to meet within three months to review the progress of implementation of the recommendations.
Present at the meeting are; Afenifere Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, survival of recent kidnapped incidence and son of the immediate past Health Minister, Dayo Adewole, The National Chairman of GAFDAN, Saleh Bayeri.
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