Gombe Commemorates National Day Of Mourning
Keziah Yusuf, Gombe
Gombe State has commemorated the National Day of mourning out of thirteen other states.
Mrs Gloria Usman in her speech on Friday, disclosed that Gombe chose stakeholders dialogue over a roadshow for fear that the road show would be hijacked just like the ENDSARS protest.
She said, “The stakeholders dialogue would be more meaningful than just walking around with placards.”
Also speaking, representative of the National Orientation Agency, Ms Adalin Patari, urged the citizens to to be tolerant and respect each other’s choice of religion and not impose one’s religion on the other.
Patari called on leaders and the citizens at large to be fair and just in everything they do, adding that citizens must be self reliant and not resort to kidnapping or robbery.
She said, “We need to go back to our core values; discipline, patriotism, dignity of labour, integrity, religious tolerance, social justice and self reliant.
“Politicians must stop making things worse by using the youths as political thugs during election and giving them drugs”
While appealling to youths to get themselves something to do, stressing that they won’t have to wait for politicians to give them money.
“Because when they are self reliant, they won’t be employed by politicians to kill someone on their behalf. Patari also called on parents to train their children by inculcating Good values and especially God fearing as family is the first agent of socialization.
“Security is everybody’s responsibility, we all have a role to play. Security agents need us to give them information that they can work with.
“The youths in the area should also come out to defend their territory. So that the people coming from outside will know that, that particular environment is secured,” she added.
On her part, representative of Gombe State Ministry of Internal Security, Zuwaira Ahmed Malami, called on government to create more job opportunities for the youths and the need for every Nigerian to be engaged economically.
According to her, “Youths are angry with the rich, many of these challenges are as a result of the gaps between the haves and the have not.”
Also, A representative of the Human Right Commission, Mr Alola who spoke about the language of human rights in the constitution chapter four of the 1999 constitution 2011 as amended, in section 33 talks about the right to life.
Alola stated that most of the problems Nigeria is facing is due to the lack of respect for individual’s rights, noting that in the constitution that every individual has the right of movement, as long as you are a Nigerian you have the right to move freely without restriction.
He said, “We also have the right to religion, right to Association, dignity of human person and what have you. respect for each other’s right will bring peace to the nation.
“All hands should be on deck to ensure there is safety in our communities.”
Alola also spoke about the need to have not only Security intelligence gathering but also for civic intelligence gathering, to enable the citizens to share their intelligence with the Security Agencies.
He added that we should not only mourn but ponder and proffer solutions to the end of these, Nigeria can’t keep mourning without providing solutions to the menace.
The Chairman of the Association of Non-government Organisations (ANGO), Mr Ibrahim Yusuf (3000), expressed his displeasure regarding the ‘i don’t care’ attitudes of politicians. Yusuf stated that they were in invited for the program but none of them honoured the invite, adding that they don’t honour any invitation that concerns the citizens and when they manage to send a representative; they end up sending someone incompetent or someone who is not capable of reporting back to them.
Yusuf said, “The Security Agencies cannot give us solutions no matter how equipped they are because there is political interference, most especially when a thug is arrested, they will call the station and demand for his release and failure to do so you will be charged with insubordination.”
Yusuf added, “The civil society has never worked independently for the past ten years without the security agencies though the civil society was seen as an opposition to the political parties, security or authority.
“The civil society has established a cordial relationship with the Security Agencies, traditional and religious leaders knowing that we need each other to proffer solutions to the problems at hand.”
He noted that civilians were the only targets but now even the security officials are targeted, “that is why the program is tagged ‘Nigeria Bleeds’ because there is no region that is hundred percent safe or has not experienced violence,” ANGO boss revealed.
