Nigeria at 63: Harnessing the gains in our diversity

Countries worldwide are characterised by heterogeneity in race, culture, tradition, language and skin colour. Nigeria, as a part of the global community, shares in her own peculiar characteristics, comprising of North and South made up of six geopolitical zones and their respective states; and the federal capital territory, Abuja. It further comprises of ethnic nationalities and tribes with distinctive languages and dialects.

At the family levels total homogeneity is not achieved on account of uniqueness in creation. Siamese twins, otherwise known as conjoined twins, have their individualities before and after separation, not to talk of separate twins and even single births.

In the larger societies, which are a conglomeration of the individual families, diversities become very pronounced. Yet, all blend together by burying differences to forge commonalities.

In our respective villages we co-relate just like in larger communities, by jettisoning our differences to bond together.

In the various schools from primary to secondary schools and up to tertiary institutions namely universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, etc., within and outside the states, intimate relationships blur lines of diversity as fused unity is projected.

At certain levels of education, for example, admissions are offered from within and outside states of origin to reflect federal character. Admissions to schools in other states as is the case of the 110 federal government colleges also known as unity schools, are based on quota system. These colleges are noted for subjection of the students to common rules and norms that do not allow for defining of barriers to create diversity.  This is where sense of one Nigeria also commences and coexistence rules.

Aside from education, our unity reflects in the mobilisation of our youths for NYSC scheme. The scheme is at the height of national integration that has largely obliterated lines of our diversity as a nation, to advance our unity.

In most areas of our national lives, quota system that is constitutionally backed, reflects in the civil service as well as in other areas of federal government labour force in departments and agencies, among others. The workforce mix helps to fuse all together, irrespective of peculiarities of ethnicities and languages.

Professional services providers like Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Technicians, Artisans, and Transporters, etc., do not draw tribal or ethnic boundaries in rendering their invaluable services or plying their trades.

Rendering rescue assistance in life-threatening emergency situations does not draw a line of demarcation as to tribal leanings. The ultimate is to save lives irrespective of tribe or indigeneship. Unity in diversity reflects very clearly in our elections to various political offices.

The National Assembly, comprising of the Senate and House of Representatives, are constituted in ways that all the states are involved in political administration of Nigeria, to commonly discuss and advance Nigeria.

In the area of security, the police, the military and para-military outfits, secure all of us without recourse to tribes, or proclivity to states of origin. This is same with federal ministers who are meant to be ministers of the whole country and not just of their respective states.

Religion, comprising Christianity, Islam and traditional religion, for example, is a true agent of national cohesion, and must remain so.

We cheer our footballers and athletes, men and women, to victory with focus on the trophy, without inclination to ethnicity. That is the way to go.  Our spirit of oneness must not therefore end in the football field.

We must internalise the support and ovation we give to our men and women players and athletes beyond the football pitches and athletic arenas. Men and women footballers and athletes celebrating one trophy is obviously unifying, as it transmits love that projects one Nigeria.

Political parties from formation to electioneering have electoral victories in mind to serve Nigeria as the target, and quite devoid of religion, tribe, ethnicity or language, to make real our Unity in diversity.

Intermarriages further help to integrate us beyond tribe to thin down tribal and linguistic lines.

We cannot knowingly hurl stones in areas of the country where we gave our daughters in marriages, nor speak hate or make snide or incendiary remarks that hurt sensibilities.

As a result of work or schooling, most Nigerians have, all their lives, been residing in different parts of the country such that many children hardly know their states or tribes of origin. Even when they do know, however, they must not be told that by their host communities, so as to engender a sense of belongingness. For their births and length of their residences in states other than theirs, there is nothing wrong in the respective states’ administrations extending some levels of indigeneship rights to these children.

Life of employment in different states by people of other ethnic nationalities; relationships in schools; security personnel guarding even private residences of people from unrelated tribes, are enough display of sense of oneness and brotherliness.

Network of roads, waterways and airways as means of transportation do not discriminate against zones and must go to further our web of unity and linkages in a nation of diverse makeup.

In all of these, control of the tongue, arguably agent of feud, is necessary as not to propagate hate and divisiveness through use of intemperate languages, denigrating comments, and propagation of fake news and propaganda that tend towards hurtful ethnic profiling.

The aforelisted areas, among others, related to our commonness in spite of our differences, will be honed to help engender a sense of commonness and nip in the bud all forms of insecurities and killings, to truly deepen our professed unity in diversity.  All these can be more achieved when parents play their integrating roles in their respective families; and teachers at all levels of education play their own parts in the unification processes. Employing these measures, can make us better than we currently are.

Officials of NYSC, from the period at the orientation camps, must cultivate patriotism mindsets in the corps members before proceeding to their places of primary assignments to expectedly inject nationalism spirit in them within the one year of national service. Churches, mosques, and other places of religious worships must preach peace and unity in their various sessions of sermons, in ways that religion, broadly comprising Christianity and Islam for example, must be true agent of national cohesion.

National Orientation Agency whose mandate it is to sensitise citizens on unity and raise national consciousness must be alive to its responsibilities, in addition to creating presence at the grassroots levels in cascading down their messages of patriotism, peace, love and unity.

Broadcast stations, both federal and private owned, have respective roles to play on how to stave off dangers of divisiveness or hate utterances. Means of censoring erring Social Media outfits must be devised to forestall the penchant of some of them in the propagation of potentially dangerous posts and demeaning messages.

Political parties must be nationalistic in formation and outlook, just as politicians vying for various political offices must be properly screened with a view of ascertainment of detribalised minds in them.

With the federalism we are operating, resources of every region or state must be extracted and deployed in ways that will give them a sense of belonging, and devoid of any feelings of deprivation and predisposition of their environments to despoilment.

Same way, infrastructure spread in all nooks and crannies of the country must be equitable in distribution to douse restiveness and agitations.

Harnessing the gains in our differences to truly live out the professed ‘unity in diversity’ mantra has wide-ranging developmental and progressive benefits for Nigeria, and mutual relationship for all Nigerians.

Achieving this goes a long way to forge harmonious entity for a lasting national peace, national love and national unity that transcends religion, state of origin, tribe and ethnicity, to realise Nigeria of our dream.

Obasi is a Public Affairs Analyst.