The President of the Senate, David Mark, on Saturday in Kaduna said Nigeria must use the forthcoming elections scheduled for April to prove to the international community that it has the capability to conduct credible polls.
Mark stressed that the April elections would provide Nigeria the opportunity to demonstrate that its democracy had got to the point where it could, through the Independent National Electoral Commission ,conduct the elections whose results would be acceptable to all.
The Senate president stated this while speaking at the opening of a two-day conference on Religious Harmony for Good Governance organised by the Islamic Resource Centre and the Community Renaissance Co-Existence and Re-Orientation Initiative.
He called on all Nigerians to cooperate with the relevant authorities to ensure the peaceful conduct of the forthcoming elections.
Mark said the forthcoming polls should be devoid of violence, bloodshed, stressing that this would open the doors of opportunities to every Nigerian.
He added that the polls should be one in which all “Nigerians would agree to disagree” rather than resorting to violence and bloodshed to settle their grievances.
Mark, who was represented by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Inter-Parliamentary Affairs, Senator Abdulazeez Usman, urged all to work hard to ensure the conduct of peaceful elections by shunning all acts that could be inimical to the growth of democracy and the country.
He described Nigerians as hard working and resilient, adding that there must be concerted efforts to ensure the success of the polls.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Organising Committee, Dr. Aminu Al-Amin, noted that Nigeria would have been a greater nation after 50 years of independence if there were social cohesion and good governance at all levels.
Al-Amin decried the series of crises in some parts of the country, especially in the Niger Delta, Borno, Abuja , Plateau and Bauchi states.
He pointed out that these crises had resulted in the breakdown of social cohesion among the people, adding that the aim of the conference was to explore the opportunities presented by the two major religions in the country- Christianity and Islam- to bring about harmony and good governance.
Also speaking on the occasion, the National Chief Imam of Ansur-Deen Society of Nigeria, Imam Abdul-Rahman Ahmad urged the Federal Government to urgently release the findings of the various commissions of enquiry into the perennial crises in Jos and to bring the culprits to book.
This, Ahmad said, would bring to an end the crises, noting that ethnicity, political rivalry, mutual suspicion and intolerance have been identified as causes of hatred and disharmony in the country.
He also blamed some of the crises on the activities of unqualified persons parading themselves as religious leaders, accusing them of preaching what they were not knowledgeable about and in the process misleading their followers.
He advised that perpetrators and sponsors of the violence be made to bear the full weight of the law, while calling on religious leaders not to allow criminals to hide under the cover of religion to perpetrate evil acts.
Source: The Punch
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