The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) has asked President Bola Tinubu to implement the report of the 2014 national conference without further delays.
The group also called for an immediate ban on nomadic cattle rearing and abolishment of the RUGA project.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, chairman of the forum and former deputy governor of Taraba state, Samuel Gani and the Secretary, Pastor Bosun Emmanuel,
blamed “foreign invaders masquerading as religious extremists” for the spate of killings in Nigeria.
The NCEF called on indigenous ethnic nationalities “to come together to renegotiate Nigeria”.
According to the NCEF, “indigenous ethnic nationalities have the same and common enemy in the foreign invaders”.
The group said, “Recently, a community leader in the Niger Delta raised the alarm that a displacement invasion is ongoing. “Similar reports have been made in Taraba, Benue, Adamawa, and in other parts of the country.
“Shortly after the abduction of 287 secondary school children in Kuriga, Kaduna state, a security expert stated on Arise TV that the location of the camps of the bandits was known to government four years ago.
“The ethnic nationalities should assert their right and ownership over their ancestral land and assert the dominion of their thrones in Nigeria.
“The ethnic socio-cultural groups such as Afenifere, Ohaneze, Ndigbo, Arewa Consultative Group, Middle Belt Forum, and PANDEF should consider these issues in greater detail.
“Nigerians have no problem with each other. It is external forces that are seeking to tear the country apart for hostile takeover of the land and its resources.
“The demand for devolution of power should be intensified by the ethnic nationalities.”
The group also recommended that Tinubu should appoint a “special investigator to conduct a commission of inquiry into the causes, as well as expose the actors, in the various acts of terrorism and insurgency that have overwhelmed Nigeria since 2009”.
