Matawalle agrees with Lawan, blames South-West govs for ethnic clashes

Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle has backed the call by Senate President, Ahmed Lawan that some governors of the South-West geopolitical zone have to be cautioned in view of the ethnic attacks in the region.

It would be recalled that the Senate President had accused some of the governors last week that their unguarded utterances led to the ethnic crisis at Shasha market in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

The governor also condemned what he called acts of ethnic discrimination and regional dichotomy.

Matawalle, who sympathised with victims of the Ibadan market mayhem, also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take decisive action on the spate of violence gripping some South-Western states and gradually turning into criminality.

The governor said: ‘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 a 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 semblance of generality to particularity as a people.”

Read also: South-West governors fueling ethnic crisis in their states —Lawan

The Special Adviser to Matawalle on Public Enlightenment, Media and Communications, Zailani Bappa, while speaking on behalf of the governor on Sunday, noted that ethnic hate and regional dichotomy will not lead the country to anywhere good but backwardness and doom.

According to Bappa, Governor Matawalle 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 he said 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 attacks and ensure that such happenings do not occur again. We are battling with insurgency and banditry as a nation and here are supposed to 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”, Governor Matawalle said.

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