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‘Hate Speeches Could Destroy Nigeria’ – Osinbajo

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Acting president Yemi Osinbajo has said hate speeches does not equal freedom of expression.

He spoke on Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at a national security seminar on ‘Unity in Diversity’ organized by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Abuja, YNaija reports.

According to him, it is the biggest mistake that can be done by any society.

“We must control and insist that people don’t make utterances that are capable of disrupting the peace,” he said.

He said every major crisis in history was presided by hate speeches, noting that genocides have been caused by hate speeches.

He said, “We must do something about it.”

He also decried many false narratives used by agitators for breaking up the country either along regional lines or ethnic grounds.

He said one of the major false narrative is the argument that countries formed the way ours was formed are bound to fail.

He pointed out that another false narrative is that one particular ethnic group or religious group is more responsible for Nigeria’s problems than the other or superior than the other.

This he said is false because when issues of corruption are examined, it would be found that all ethnic groups are involved the in pilfering of public funds.

He also decried that corruption is possibly the worst evil that has befallen the country.

He said, “There is no other single reason why this country is set back, it is what accounts for where we are today economically.”

Leave The North By October 1 – Arewa Groups Warn Igbos

A coalition of prominent groups in Northern Nigeria on Tuesday, June 6, 2017 issued an ultimatum to Igbos living in the north to return home by October 1, 2017 or else they will face a situation similar to the pre-civil war pogroms visited on their kin in the 1960s.

The order was contained in an error-ridden statement, obtained by The Trent, issued after a meeting in Kaduna State. The groups, Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum, and the Northern Emancipation Network, asked the Igbo residing in the region to “start making plans to leave.”

The chilling statement condemned the renewed call for the independent republic of Biafra and also expressed disdain for the Igbos and their culture saying that “the Igbo people of the South-East, not repentant of the carnage it wrought on the nation in 1966,  is today boldly reliving those sinister intentions connoted by the Biafran agitation that led to the very first bloody insurrection in Nigeria’s history”.

In 1966, the Igbos were the victims of the largest genocide in Nigeria’s history with over 100,000 of them killed in Northern Nigeria by northern mobs. This pogrom led to the declaration of the Republic of Biafra which led to the Nigerian civil war in which over 3 million Igbos died.

The northern groups’ threat to Igbos is now widely referred to as the Kaduna Declaration and has been widely condemned by public officials and political groups. However, it has also received wide support from northern elements like Professor Abdullahi.

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