Former Lagos state Commissioner for Information and strategy and Vice Chairman of TV Continental, Dele Alake has said that the various conflicts in the country in recent times is affecting the economic, political and social lives of Nigerians, saying it was unfortunate that various reasons adduced for this challenge has not help in any way in addressing the problem.
Alake who spoke at the opening of the National Summit on Conflict resolution organised by The Nation newspaper and Television Continental in Abuja said the farmer/herders clashes in recent time has grossly affected the agricultural production of the country.
He said even though the nation had managed to survive a break up, Nigerians cannot longer continue to overlook these challenges confronting it, pointing out that this explain why the two media houses considered it necessary to bring together stakeholder to deliberate on the way forward.
He said: “There is no doubt that Nigeria is at a critical junction. In the annals of this country, our fire fathers created a vision of having a country of peace and harmony.
“They created an environment that is conducive to our daily lives in peace. They envisioned a nation that is welded together as brothers and sisters where everybody goes about his or her daily duty unhindered, where our economy will thrive, our polity will be progressive and our society will be developed.
“This we have been trying very hard to achieve and inspite of all the hiccups, the ups and down that has confronted us like every other nation, we have also managed to us ourselves together as one united forward looking country.
“Infact, Nigeria is reputed to be one of the largest nations in the world in terms of abundant human and material resource, quite unique. We have adequate amount of sunshine, we have enough of rain fall. We have all the God give underground resources. Gold, bauxite, kaolin are available in this country, not to mention the black gold, oil.
“We have abundant quality human resources and when you go out in the international community, you discovered Nigerians 8n the top echelon of the economy, business, politics, in the academia, sciences etc. we have all it takes to be on the top echelon of the comity of nation, but we have been struggling all along.
“We have our own fair share of the challenges. But every time we seems to have been pushed to the precipice, we have managed to pull back to retrospect and reflect and by the grace of God, we have always managed to avoid disaster and disintegration and have trudged on in harmony and peace.
“All along, we have been able to contend with centrifugal forces in our society and we have managed thus far. Why can’t we manage all that has happened.
In recent times, our nation has been confronted with serious problem, the challenge of peaceful coexistence that some of our previous generations have taken for granted and we can no longer take them for granted.
“Specifically, we have been confronted with all manner of forces that threatened us, threaten our social-economic advancement, threaten our political stability and threatening us even as a one united nation.
“As usual, we are not going to sit down and fold our hands and keep watching till the apocalypse. This prompted two frontline media houses, The Nation newspaper and TVC to sit down, ponder on all these issues, for general good and even for peculiar interest and as responsible corporate citizens in the Nigerian project, we decided to relate a platform to bring all the parties that are contending with one another together because even after a war, the resolution will be on the round table and it will end up in discussion.
“So, we decided that before we get to the level of an all-out war, we should bring all the warring forces to the round table to discuss because as the saying goes, to jaw jaw is better than to war.
“There is no doubting the fact that all the clashes, with regard to the herder/Farmers clashes have impacted negatively on our environment, on our polity because there is tension everywhere, on our economy, particularly on agricultural production and sale and especially peaceful coexistence without which, no development can take place.
“This was the prime objective and the motivation behind The Nation newspaper and TV Continental in creating this platform. We have decided to bring all of you together to vent your spleen in good conscience, in a peaceful atmosphere with a view to finding enduring solution to a seemingly intractable problem.
“Various reasons have been adduced as causes of the clashes ranges from incursion by foreigners into Nigerian Territory or because some people wanted expansionism among others.
“All these reasons have been unhelpful and have failed to abate the problem and these reasons have been giving discordant signs and we felt that there has a platform has not been created where the antagonist and protagonist can sit down together, face each other and come out with their own perspective, educate the public and all of us who are interested parties in the Nigerian problem with a view to resolving issues and coming out of this platform as brothers and sisters that we all want to be, which we all want to be.”
