Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has reacted to the ongoing violence on a northern community in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, saying he strongly condemns any act of ethnic discrimination and regional dichotomy.
Governor Matawalle who was in Ibadan on Sunday afternoon to sympathize with victims of ethnic attacks called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take decisive action on the spate of violence gripping some south-western states and which is gradually turning into criminality.
The governor’s visit was contained in a press statement signed and made available to newsmen in Gusau by his Special Adviser on media and public enlightenment, Hon. Zailani Bappa.
“It is inexcusable that at this stage of our journey as a nation, we are yet to come to terms with the fact that God has made it destiny for us to live as one people. It is unfortunate that while our counterparts elsewhere are fusing up from particularity to generality as a people, we are fast sliding backwards from the semblance of generality to particularity as a people’, Governor Matawalle said.
The governor noted that ethnic hate and regional dichotomy will not lead anybody to whatever they think they can gain out of it but backwardness and doom.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take a decisive step towards ending the ethnic profiling of the Fulani tribe in some parts of the country which is now graduating to include the entire northern communities, especially in Oyo State.
“I also urge my colleague, the Governor of Oyo State to take concrete steps in curtailing the ongoing senseless and merciless attacks and ensure that such happenings do not occur again. We are battling with insurgency and banditry as a nation and are supposed be law-abiding citizens unleashing mayhem on innocent citizens to compound the spate of insecurity in the country”
“We must eschew primitive hatred against one another and learn to live with ourselves as one people. Our common enemy is not among those we live in the same community, buy and sell from one another, but those who take up arms against us in the name of banditry and insurgency”
