MURIC urges Nigerians to learn to coexist peacefully

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), a Non Governmental Organisation, has urged Nigerians to learn to coexist peacefully.

The MURIC director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, in a statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday,  condemned the ethnic-related killings in Oyo State, while calling on law enforcement agents to fish out those responsible for the killing and arson.

”This country belongs to us all and we have no other place we can call our own. We should therefore be prepared to tolerate and to forgive one another.

”We should always remember that others are playing host to our kith and kin just as we are hosts and landlords to others. Southerners live in the North in their thousands just as thousands of Northerners live in the South.

“We should all control our emotions in times of anger because the actions of Southerners in the South may be used to judge Southerners in the North and vice versa.

”We are all stakeholders in the Nigerian project and ambassadors of our tribes and clans.

“MURIC appeals to Nigerians to also eschew bitterness and vengeance. We remind true patriots that fifth columnists are still bent on causing confusion.

”Insurrectionists, rebellious subjects and enemies of peace want this government to fail. That is why they keep sending hate messages and fake news on both conventional and social media.

”They are inciting the populace against the government of the day. They are setting tribes against each other with the hope of setting off a huge conflagration which no fire fighter will be able to extinguish,” he said.

Akintola appealed to traditional rulers to bring their weights to bear in forging more cordial relations between their communities and non-indigenes.

Reports state clashes between traders from the Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups broke out on Saturday at Shasha market in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo, the state governor’s spokesman said.