NORTHERN elders under the aegis of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) have faulted the call by the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that ethno-religious organisations in the country should be banned.
The groups argued that rather than lay blames for the nation's political and socio-economic woes at the doorsteps of religious associations, the inability of government to address the fundamental issues of development should be seen as responsible for the precarious situation facing the nation.
The ACF National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Anthony Sani, in a statement Wednesday pointed out that, "not all regional and religious fora are divisive as posited by Sanusi, precisely because their overlapping interests and countervailing forces tend to reinforce the unity of the country."
He stated: "I believe their place in the order of things is to inspire national solidarity that comes with relative pluralism, and not cloistered particularism.
"It is much easier to use such fora and bring the people together in order to enable them unleash their synergy by living up their collective challenges for both individual and public good, as against allowing the attitude of 'To your tents O Israel!' to prevail and inspire ethnic nationalism that is unhelpful."
Also, the NLC Vice President, Issa Aremu, said in a statement yesterday: "As attractive as this call on the ban of all these insular centrifugal forces, namely the JNI, CAN and others is, the CBN governor inadvertently has further increased the importance and indeed helped to increase the noise level of these organisations.
"These non-state organisations are certainly not the problem. The problem lies in the failure of legitimate state institutions to deliver on their promises, namely - PHCN yet to deliver on uninterrupted power, Ministry of Trade and Investment with all its efforts still presides over factory closures (industrial mortuary) and smuggling.
There are as well "the CBN, whose monetary and fiscal policies with all the efforts of its governor are yet not industry-friendly, Nigerian Customs Service (with all its efforts) that still turn the nation's borders to smuggling zones, and Immigration Services that hawks expatriate quotas to terrorists." Aremu argued further that the "non-performing of state institutions are the real threat to security, not non-state institutions that ape the bad behavior of state institutions." He pointed out that "in the task of nation-building, when the state institutions are not on duty, non-state institutions (progressive or reactionary alike) will always fill the void.
"The issue, therefore, is for all state actors to deliver on promises and get reactionary non-state actors out of business. State officials should also stop patronising non-inclusive institutions.
"President and governors alike should make policy pronouncements in their respective Houses of Assembly and not in churches and mosques or their primordial village/clan organisations."
