Nigeria Government Must Make Peace with Boko Haram, Militants – Tony Oyatedor

By Alex Uangbaoje, Kaduna

Worried by the way insecurity is being fought in Nigeria without an effective result to show for it, Executive Director, News Time, Tony Oyatedor, on Tuesday urged the Nigeria Government to make peace with the the insurgents and militants to end insecurity.

Oyatedor, who is also an author and motivational speaker, well known across Europe, America and Africa, said the peace talk became necessary not because they want to but because they just have to, to save more lives from being destroyed by what he called “twin problems”.

According to him, “leadership must make peace with the twin problems, not because they want to, but because they have to. To suggest otherwise would be inaccurate. Terrorism is error and sins of ignorance and thoughtlessness. With the twin problems came excruciating distress and severe pain to Nigerians.

“The twin problems-Boko Haram and Niger Delta Militancy will be promising to move from bitter fighting to close friendship with time leadership of Nigeria through the help of Newstime. The situation in Nigeria on the twin problems is a legacy of many years of problems.

“It is not something that happened over night. We are not going to be able to resolve it overnight with a snap of the finger. We must riot take sides. Our work is not to condemn, but our work is to accomplish reconciliation and peace.

“The twin problems in Nigeria is a serious problem and no one is working to fix it, they only talk about it but Newstime has the solution, and w ill roll up our sleeves to work and fix it for good.

“For a while now, there has been distress (trouble and anguish) in Nigeria, a nation in bewilderment and perplexity (without resources, left wanting, embarrassed, in doubt, not knowing which way to turn). People swooning away or expiring with fear and dread and apprehension and expectations of the things that are coming to the nation.”

He further stated that, “the people in Nigeria looked for justice, love, unity, light, peace and security, but behold, all they saw from the leadership was oppression, distress, darkness (NEPA), bloodshed and destruction. – Hence, the twin problems – Boko Haram and Niger Delta Militancy.

“Of a truth, today as we speak, many houses in the North are desolate, without inhabitants. Destruction of lives and properties everywhere you turn. Weapons may quiet insurgency, but they sure will not stop it, it is only the Word, that will surely end it. The fact will not make the evidence disappear, because 50 plus years later, doing the same thing over and over again, nothing has changed.

He laments that, though Nigeria, is a country rich in natural and human resources but suffers from wide-spread poverty, due to bad leadership. Saying, “Peace, prosperity, development, security will bring Nigeria back as giant of Africa.

“Abundant domestic oil and gas should fuel a new birth of Nigerian manufacturing. Domestic energy production must power a stronger Nigerian economy.”

He called on the government to listen to and learn from those preferring solutions to the problems of the country out use of arms, adding, “education is a life-long process, no one should feel too old or too big to learn something, especially what will bring peace and love to the world.

“All it requires for temporary victory of evil over good is for people of conscience to keep silent. Evil can only thrive in Nigeria when good people in the country keep quiet when things go wrong.”

“There is so much work to be done in Nigeria, yet people complain about unemployment. No light employ people at electricity companies to give light, no roads- employ people to build roads, no water to drink- employ people to produce drinking water, no clean environment- employ people to clean the environment, no good schools- employ people to build schools, no infrastructure- employ people to build and maintain infrastructure etc.

“For every and anything we do not have, employ people to build or produce it. We have the human and natural resources in abundance. “Oh for God so love Nigeria that He gave them everything.”

“Successful leadership work hard to build up reservoirs of goodwill (friends, not enemies) with their party, other branches of government, the media, the people of Nigeria, the people of their state, and local government origins- so that when the cookie crumbles (and it always will) they can tap into that goodwill to carry them through the difficulties. Oyatedor, said.