The former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Kanu Godwin Agabi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has urged Nigerian government to establish National Integration Commission.
Delivering a convocation lecture entitled, One Nation, One Destiny, to mark the 32nd Convocation of the University of Calabar on Thursday, Mr. Agabi said the commission would be charged with the mandate of bringing all segments and tribes of the country together as one entity outside the role played by Federal Character Commission which is concerned with equitable sharing of positions in the country.
“We cannot call ourselves a nation until we integrate because as it is we are not one nation. A Nigerian ought to be able to seek office wherever he lives irrespective of his tribe and religion; he ought to be able to find employment in the public service of the state of his residence.
“What should determine his eligibility for a job ought not to be his place of origin but his qualification for the job” Agabi said, stating “Nigeria fought a bitter war in the sixties with the plan to keep the country united but that purpose has not been achieved as the country is still divided along ethnic and religious lines.”
He pointed out “There is absolute need to integrate the nation maintaining that corruption arises from the appointment of incompetent people to high offices, this has been aggravated by lack of national integration.
“As long as the nation is not integrated or sufficiently integrated, it will continue to have problems of insecurity and corruption. And so we recommend the establishment, immediately of a national integration commission, whose responsibility shall be to propose and implement measures for national integration.”
He said the establishment of a national integration Commission would foster unity among the different ethnic nationalities and religious groups in the nation to fast track development in the country.
The former Attorney General bemoaned the rate of killings in the country, stating that the blood of innocent lives shed through rituals, kidnappings, hunger, militancy and terrorism is crying from the ground and until there is a stop to such, God would not be pleased with the country.
