The vice chancellor of African School of Economics, Prof. Mahfouz Adedimeji, has urged Nigerians to underplay their ethnic, religious and political differences, and embrace a culture of peace and harmony.
He also urged them to break the barriers of conflict that might arise among them in order to make Nigeria attain its full potential.
He made the call at the university in Abuja weekend in his presentation on ‘Cultivating a Culture of Peace: Build Bridges, Break Barriers’ as part of the activities to mark 2024 UN International Day of Peace.
Adedimeji, who is also a Fellow of the Society for Peace Studies and Practice, said the world was undergoing turbulence with violent conflicts and their associated inhumanity ravaging many places across the world.
The former director of the Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ilorin, identified working hard to unite people and communities, fostering dialogue, promoting mutual understanding and accepting diversity as solutions to those problems.
Emphasising the need to embrace positive mental attitude, Adedimeji said the window theory by which people seek to blame others for their woes should be replaced by the mirror theory which allows people to focus on themselves with a view to working out solutions.
A professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Ilorin, Sola Babatunde, in his presentation on ‘The Might of Peace’, asked Nigerians to live in peace and unity in spite of their diversity.
He said the secret of success in a pluralistic society is to learn to use conflict and differences constructively because conflict is part of life.