By Amos Tauna
Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, and the organized labour, have described President Muhammadu Buhari’s national broadcast on Monday as timely and reassuring on the unity and indissolubility of Nigeria as a federation.
The two bodies in their separate statements issued in Kaduna, northern Nigeria on Monday supported the President’s stand against hate speeches, and called on Nigerians to heed to the call for restrain and resort to peaceful means of ventilating their grievances.
ACF National Publicity Secretary, Muhammad Ibrahim Biu, in a statement said, “Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, once more welcomes President Muhammadu Buhari from his medical vacation and again wishes him good health, Allah’s guidance and protection in the discharge of his responsibility.
“His Presidential broadcast of today was commendable and all encompassing, especially on the unity and indivisibility of the country.
“ACF supports the position of government on the issues of restructuring and the channels of addressing genuine grievances through the appropriate democratic institutions such as the legislature and judiciary.
“On the issue of hate speeches and inflammatory remarks, now that government has taken a decisive action to arrest the situation, ACF appeals to all Nigerians to henceforth heed to the call for restrain and resort to peaceful means of ventilating their grievances.
“ACF calls on governments at all levels to step up peace and confidence building in order to douse the current socio political tensions.”
Similarly, the organised labour in its statement issued by a member of NLC NEC and General Secretary of the National Union of Textile and Garment Workers of Nigeria, NUTGWN, Issa Aremu, called on all compatriots, state or non-state alike to rise and defend the constitution of the country in the face of what it described as ‘forces of disunity, revisionism and sheer disintegration’.
He said, President Muhammadu had exhibited remarkable statesmanship by devoting his first appreciation speech to the vexed issue of Nigerian unity in reminding all Nigerians of the obvious truism that the motto of Nigeria as enshrined in the constitution is ‘Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress’.
Labour urged other statesmen and women to emulate the President by talking the right talk and working the talk on Nigerian renaissance rather than organizing what he called ‘wasteful thanks giving/solidarity visits of dubious value’.
“All Nigerians should not only decry hate speeches and hate conducts of forces of disunity but should also talk the language of unity and love as President Buhari had done,” he said.
He observed, “Hate speeches come from the constituencies, states and local governments not necessarily in Abuja, and wondered why the governors, legislators and councils chairmen in the hate domains could not call the misguided few in their domains to order as Buhari has done.”
He urged Nigerians to be ambitious in leading Africans from underdevelopment to prosperity which he explained could only be possible with a strong, united and indissoluble Nigeria as contained in the 1999 constitution.
The labour leader said Nigerians should compliment the President by making sure that every African has claim to free movement in Nigeria as much as every Nigerian has the legitimate right to be anywhere in Africa.
According to him, it was madness for anybody to think of breaking Nigeria into ethnic enclaves at a time Africa Union, AU, was working out a common passport for all Africans and almost 50 years Europeans have built a strong Union.