Today, nothing poses more threat and danger to our national security than the incidents of ethnicity and orchestrated violence. Ethnicity is a threat whose existence is fueled and sustained by unrivalled passion for the imagined preservation of one’s ethnic group at the expense of others and the nation.
The greatest bane to our development as a nation is ethnicity. It is a trend, if not checked, shall one day engulf the nation in a very serious conflagration that in the end may disintegrate the entity called Nigeria. Mutual suspicion, distrust and hatred amongst our diverse ethnic nationalities have been steadily on the rise since our independence.
Often times, most disagreements are expressed in violence of immense magnitude. This has given birth to a violent culture in most of the country today, thereby threatening the socio-economic development of the nation.
Instead of exploiting, to our advantage, the positive attributes of the respective ethnic nationalities in Nigeria , we have, unwittingly, turned this unique set-up into a monster and which in turn has become an albatross of a kind.
The First Nigerian Civil War was a direct fall out from ethnic hatred. The war, though now over, is still rearing its head in another form – intermittent ethnic violence of murderous proportions.
The trend is so alarming that every government policy, irrespective of the good intentions of the government, is interpreted and read along ethnic lines by the populace. Most times, governments are blackmailed into abandoning or implementing haphazardly or ineffectively policies that would have been beneficial to the entire nation because of uproar from one ethnic group or the other that may feel such policies do not favour or hurt the business of the ethnic stock. Whether such businesses are helpful or harmful to the economy or well-being of the nation in general is not important. In most cases, there is total inaction or lack of will on the part of government to do what is just for fear of ethnic blackmail.
CORRUPTION
Anyone in government can corruptly enrich himself in the name of his ethnic stock. Government cannot fight corruption effectively as those indicted would readily whip up ethnic sentiments and the collective clamour of his ethnic stock in his defense would effectively scuttle every plan of the government to this end..
ETHNIC VIOLENCE
However, the trend becomes frightening when this mutual suspicion and distrust lead to violence. Most times, these violent eruptions are sponsored by the politicians and the elite. They incite the ignorant populace to violence making them believe that they are fighting an imaginary war and foe in order to protect their own ethnic stock from whatever wrong whether real or imaginary they must have cooked up and fed them with.
There is complete absence of Nationalism in the consciousness of most Nigerians. To redress this, there must be a re-orientation of the individual. A different kind of education must take place in order to make the citizen appreciate the gains of unity in diversity.
The foregoing led to the formation of the FOUNDATION FOR ETHNIC HARMONY IN NIGERIA (FEHN) – AN NGO.
FAITH IN NIGERIA
The clamour for rotational presidency and policies as quota system and federal character are all fallouts from the existence of ethnic mutual suspicion, distrust and lack of nationalism in Nigeria . Nigeria is like a polygamous man whose children’s allegiance are to their respective mothers without any care in return for the man who is actually providing and fending for all of them. Every one wants to squeeze out the last drop of blood from the man for the well being of his/ her maternal lineage to the exclusion of others.
Ex-Militants Transformed by FEHN under the Federal Amnesty Programme
Over 600 Niger Delta Youths transformed through NDDC Sposored Programme
Akwa Ibom State Sponsored Youth to FEHN Nonviolence Programme
Participants in FEHN Community Outreach programme sponsored by SHELL PETROLEUM COMPANY in the NIGER DELTA host communities
Participants in FEHN Community Outreach programme sponsored by SHELL PETROLEUM COMPANY
OUR OBJECTIVES
We are involved in Nonviolence training and transformation programme, geared towards curbing the incidents of violence in Nigeria and the continent at large.
To promote peaceful and harmonious co-existence amongst our diverse ethnic nationalities.
To help in the education of Nigerians on the need to shun violence in settling ethnic feuds.
To take the message of harmonious co-existence to the grassroots.
To evolve programmes that will help in actualizing these ideals.
To work closely with government agencies in achieving unity in diversity.
To hold rallies and seminars on the subject of ethnic tolerance.
To effectively employ aggressive but positive methods of making the populace accept harmonious co-existence as a way of life especially in well-known hotbeds of ethnic crisis in Nigeria.
To have branches in schools and universities so as to propagate the ideals of harmonious co-existence to the youths who are the future of the country.
To help come to the aid of the government at all cadres when necessary in defense of policies of mutual benefit to the greater majority.
To institute Awards that shall be used to reward those who have, in their actions, shown faith with Nigeria as a nation.
To establish in the consciousness of all citizens the need to embrace Peace and Love.
