One for Eight Initiative Ends Symposium, Identifies Means of Maintaining Ethnic Harmony

A socio-political group in Akwa Ibom state, One For Eight Initiative has ended its Vox-pop and symposium on identifying and managing socio-political conflicts in Nigeria, held at the Amazing Grace Center Uyo. The group, which is principally concerned with the promotion of justice, equity, fair play, and accountability in the practice of governance, asserted that it went into the symposium as a result of the escalating incidents of violence across the country, especially the threat of the Boko Haram group in the north.
The guest speaker was Prof. Celestine Bassey of the University of Calabar, an international consultant, former Directing Staff/Sabbatical Fellow of National War College, Abuja and, visiting Fulbright Scholar at William Penn University, IOWA, USA.
In a communiqué issued after the event and signed by the group’s Prime Minister, Akparawa Godwin Ntuk Udeh and the National Secretary, Dr Martyns Udo Inyang, the group noted that the size of the country was a huge advantage that should be maintained by doing everything possible to retain the unity of the country. “In a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse country as Nigeria with a population of over 160 million, there will always be periodic conflicts and, management of the conflict has to do with the ability to control and contain the situation in such a way as not to impede the normal functioning of the Nigerian society”
On Boko Haram, the communiqué read, “For each conflict as typified by the Boko Haram insurgency, there is always a face or faces behind the shadow. Efforts should be intensified by trained security agencies through intelligence gathering mechanisms to penetrate the shadows by infiltration of the ranks of the gangsters.”
The group identified, “Increasing and pervasive hunger, widespread starvation and malnutrition; Growing destitution and begging on the streets by increasing number of old and young Nigerians; Massive and rising unemployment provoking the incidence of “checking out” and “brain drain”; Struggle for limited political space as well as ethnic and religious conflicts; Contest for access to resources and persistence in claims over territorial space; Large number of business closures; Collapsed and decaying educational and health facilities; Decay in infrastructure such as oil refineries, roads, railways, airways, etc; Diminishing power generation;
Environmental degradation; Policy inconsistency, lack of accountability, mismanagement and institutionalized corruption; Existence of private militias that were established, funded, used and dumped”, as causes of the crisis rocking the country.
They therefore, called “For the policy response of government to be effective in terms of preventing the intensification of spread of current or existing violent conflicts in Nigeria, it must be multi-dimensional, holistic and targeted. The concern of the Federal Government should not just be on enhancing the instrumental capacity of the security apparatus through a trillion naira budget, but also to address the fundamental sources of the generative factors (both structural and psycho-cultural) that cause and sustain the violent spectrum of conflict in Nigeria;
“The government, as a matter of urgency, should address the sources (social and political context) of terrorism and sectarian challenges to the Nigerian State: mass poverty, unemployment, alienation, “predatory, economic strategies, mal-development and the inequitable distribution of resources which generate and feed the spiral violence”