Conflict Resolution: Group Demands Equality, Respect For Ethnic Nationalities

BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – The Movement for Cognitive Justice (CMJ) says respect and equality for Nigeria’s diverse ethnic nationalities will check the recurring conflicts and senseless killings across the country.

Founder of the Movement, Dr Kajit Bagu said the existing structure is so skewed that it has left the country with mounting identity crises that now force various ethnic groupings to relentlessly clamour for fairness and justice in the polity.

Addressing a press conference in Kaduna, Dr Bagu noted that Nigeria was brought under a single entity called ‘Nation-state’ by the British without due recognition of their diversities as well as equality among the people.

According to him, “The British drew arbitrary lines in carving out the territory it named Nigeria without the consent of the people, and through its principle of divide and rule, placed one ethnic group over another.

“And today, the country is grappling with identity crises; recurrent conflicts and genocide; citizenship; indigeneship; the Fulani and settlers question; and increasing incidence of human right abuses.”

The CMJ founder said contrary to popular opinion, the solution to Nigeria’s problem was not to restructure what he described as ‘defective British-created racist order’, but to build a new political landscape, a plurinational state that Nigerians can call their own.

Picking holes in the 2014 National Conference Report and the recent submissions by the APC Committee on True Federalism, Dr Bagu said these documents failed to address real issues concerning increasing agitations in the country, adding that both reports “only embraced the fundamental defects of the post-colonial nation-state” while introducing “poisonous ideologies by denying ethnic diversities.”

For him, the solution to Nigeria’s challenges lies in the fundamental reconstruction of the country in its multi-ethnic and religious realities, stressing; “What we need is a state construct that acknowledged the diversity of its indigenous people and draw legitimacy from its diverse ethnic nationalities.

“This is because every ethnic group in the country deserves the dignity of nationhood and the only construct that can make that possible is the pluri-national state. Nigeria has about 700 ethnic nationalities, but were subsumed under hegemonic domination of the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.”

The CMJ, who insisted that each ethnic group must be recognised and be respected within the polity, said diversity should not be erased, but rather it must be embraced and celebrated on account of its beauty and strength for the country to move forward.

Citing the example of Ecuador in 2008 and Bolivia in 2009, Bagu explained that the pluri-nation state was achieved in the two South American nations when they accepted and recognised their ethic nationalities as constituent units and constitutionally protect them.

He maintained that; “Whoever did not create a world of many languages, peoples and nations, has no business working to destroy it, directly or indirectly; through legal, social, political or economic orders in the name of forging uniformity.”