By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
The Director General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Garba Abari, has observed that calling for the adoption of November 16 as an annual National Tolerance and Peaceful Co-existence Day, Nigerians have to promote unity.
Speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the National Festival of Tolerance and Peaceful Co-existence organised by NOA in collaboration with Pearl Trade West Africa with the theme, “An Impact Oriented Program with Community Intervention Programme”, he explained that it would be a day set aside each year to celebrate the country’s unity in diversity.
The Director General said that it would also be a day to promote awareness of the national ethics that include discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance and self-reliance.
He added that it is commonplace for people to subconsciously hold implied and unspoken biases that affect how they think or feel about others from different ethnicities.
According to him, these unconscious biases are the primary reason the society may appear to reflect the absence of inclusion of diversity in the country’s growing democracy.
He noted, “The festival is essential to prime the hands of Nigerians annually on the need to respect and appreciate our diversities while creating an inclusive system necessary for national development.”
