Executive Director of Foundation for Peace Professionals, Mr Abdulrazaq Hamzat, has faulted Nigeria’s approach to nationbuilding, noting that intellectual dishonesty is one of the major instigator of crisis in the country.
The peace professional and crisis communication expert also listed what he described as three ingredients of nation building that were lacking in Nigeria.
He spoke at the weekend during a programme hosted by Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigerian Youths in Abuja.
Hamzat maintained that historical and intellectual dishonesty had not helped Nigeria create cohesion that was needed to unleash the potential of the country.
According to him: “The academia, politics, media and the civil society have all not paid enough attention to the important ingredients of nation building, which are unifying historic narration, purposeful vision and learning from experience.”
He explained that Nigeria’s history had focused solely on the amalgamation of 1914, which was not supposed to be so.
“Prior to 1914 amalgamation, several amalgamations had taken place in Nigeria before the northern and southern protectorates were formed.
“The 1914 amalgamation just happened to be the last and final amalgamation done to cement the several amalgamations done earlier by the colonialist.
“Unfortunately, we have focused on the last amalgamation, which seems to encourage the false narrative of North against South that has hindered the creation of a unifying historic narrative,” he said.
Hamzat also stated that, individual leaders might have created sound and purposeful vision for the country in the past, but “such vision cannot translate to national vision because the first ingredient, which is unifying historic narration had not been put in place and reinforced as mandatory requirement, which has to be vigorously enforced.
“The country has allowed distorted personal opinion, disguised as truth to take priority in its national conversation.
“Purposeful vision without unifying historic narration would also create conflict of direction,” Hamzat said.
The peace professional also maintained that Nigeria must learn from its history and allow the knowledge to lead its path.
According to him, the difference between the old and young was age and experience.
“Nigeria should be bold enough to identify what has worked and what has not worked in its historical experience and institutionalized what has worked as its value, while avoiding what hasn’t worked,” he said.
He maintained that governance and nation building were not popularity contest.
“What works will continue to work irrespective of who is against it, while what didn’t work won’t work, irrespective of who is encouraging it. So, we must therefore stick to what works and continue to propagate it,” he said.
For those who continue to hammer on the need for justice as an important ingredient of nation building, Hamzat agreed with them.
However, he noted that “justice doesn’t exist in vacuum; it must be accompanied by responsibility and honesty,” arguing that “those who desire justice must be ready to do justice to others and also take responsibility for the justice they desire.
“Until we all as individuals learn to take responsibility and do justice in our sphere of influence, it would be difficult to expect leaders of the country to be different from us.”
He concluded that “those who do not do justice as private citizens cannot do justice when they get into government and since we are in democracy where everyone and anyone could become government, it is very crucial for us to focus on building just and responsible citizens so that when they become the government, they will simply be themselves and everything will be alright.”
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