Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, yesterday, warned that Nigeria was sitting on a time bomb ready to explode unless the causes of conflict and insecurity were properly addressed.
He said, “unless we address the underlying causes of conflicts, we will be sitting on a tinder box which, when it explodes, will consume all of us.”
The Governor who spoke on the topic “the North As hotbed for conflict: Causes and solutions”, at the Press week of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State Council assured Nigerians that “all perpetrators of crime against humanity in our communities shall be expose in no distant time. The insecurity being experienced in my State would soon be a thing of the past.”
Represented by the state commissioner of Information and Home Affairs, Mr. Inuwa Bwala, the governor said that the people were generally becoming more aware and they would rather engulf the area in crisis than let leaders have their way.
“To me every leader, every rich man is in potential danger of becoming a victim of conflicts, if we fail to address the issues of hunger, poverty, disease, unemployment, ignorance and citizen apathy to leadership.
“Governors must operate an all inclusive system which will tend to give all citizens a sense of belonging, thereby suppressing the grievances of citizens who may feel dissatisfied.
“In the midst of this poverty and squalor, we talk about the arrogant and contemptuous display of wealth by the rich in our society.
“The gap between the rich and the poor is so wide that the poor become ready and willing tools to be used by the rich.
“There have been claims that the worth of human life in some places can be equated to as little as a plate of food. To this effect, one can see that there is disconnect between the rich and the poor and between the rulers and the ruled,” he said.