to develop you know ahead of society in fact and it made it to stay behind the social thinking of human societies and you find that it is now an effort by scholars to make sure that the i mean religion tries to catch up with human social thinking advancements so so that needs to be done by scholars who understand i have had my own practical example that i found particularly liberating when this debate about extremism started i started an in-house seminar for family members young people usually undergraduates and postgraduates and one of the things i started by introducing them the religious text i said if you look at the Quran if you take all those verses in the religious text that talk about you know prohibited things talked about worship talked about all the things that we that popularly constitutes islam it does not go beyond five percent of the Quran so what is god talking about in the 95 percent of the text and here you find the real message because 95 percent of the time god is talking about the struggle of the prophets before the prophet Muhammad in their struggle to establish justice in society in other words the message of the Quran in the message of how do you struggle to establish justice in society that is lost because of the obsession with only five percent and by the time you introduce young people to that you can see how liberating that is in their own perspective and understand of the religious text they don't come to the religious text alone in knowing how to pray how to fast how to do the worship you know they come with it as a kind of movement that is how to establish justice in society and this justice of fairness is among humanity not just among muslims and that is how you come across verses that talk about the fact that even if you hate a people even if you hate a people you have a responsibility to be just and fair because god is supervising you i'm making this point to say that religion has that capacity and it is that capacity that we need to unlock unlocking it cannot be done by the frenzy by the charlatans the pose you know as religious leaders or religious scholars there are scholars who have studied the text very well they are still there they may not get the headlines because they don't make provocative statements but these are the ones that we need to encourage and i'm glad to say that there are a group of people who are working towards that you know bringing out issues of human rights bringing out issues of development bringing out issues of environment these are things that are missing in the popular debate about religion but these are things that are you know entrenched in the texts and they are there and they are eternal messages and what we need is to bring out that that will transform the perception of religion and that will inform the faithful that their religion is not just about the things that they are obsessed with at the moment there's a whole world of information of activity that is out there that allows them to relate to the rest of the world to cooperate with the rest of the world to bring about peace to bring about environmental protection to bring about development and this is the kind of perception of religion that we need to promote thank you for that inspiring vision and cardinal john does that is that the opening for the interfaith dialogue you've spent a lot of your time trying to build those bridges between the muslim and christian communities and dr obeis talked about finding the universal values how have you approached this effort and what have you seen has worked well before even anybody talks of interfaith dialogue you must have your own faith first on which you are you are seated convinced and as a christian you know very well that the basics of religion is love of god and love of neighbor because when christ was when christ was what is the greatest of religions it was the basic element of religion is love god love neighbor and the two are actually the same thing actually they are two sides of the same coin and so the basic element of good being good being good to one another love one another and love god and you cannot love god if you don't love one another that is at the bottom of everything and i think that is what what decides what determines what are those elements of our religious beliefs and practices that should be given any amount of importance there's no doubt that there are there are priorities and different levels of importance in religious in religious injunctions and in religious beliefs unfortunately the differences that we have tend to determine very often and even define who we are whereas the things that we have in common are actually the most important our common grounds and here i come now to interfaith work for a long time i have come to that conviction that when we concentrate on seeking and discovering our common grounds we keep discovering more and more certain basic truths certain basic injunctions which is the most important thing and much more important than the specific ones with which we define ourselves and that is how it is possible to to bring together our common values the kind of values that obi was talking about and make that the major element of our concerns when we live in a country like nigeria if it is one point that he actually made is at the common level of the people in the markets even the members of our churches in the pews and so on they are quite clear in their mind they'll tell you this man is a good man whether he's a muslim or a christian how do they arrive at such decisions you see somebody and you know from the way he behaves he's a really good man even before you say he's a good christian he's a good person he's a good woman and this is because we have a certain serious level of series of understanding of what are those important things my feeling therefore is that when we are trying to find out how religion can serve the purpose the positive purpose of peace good governors these are the things we have to concentrate on and by so doing we are putting a position there to work together we have a once we have once we recognize our common values we then are able to work together and to work together also to face our common challenges this is what we have also discovered in nigeria in our efforts at working together by the time we begin to work on common challenges we realize that the country challenges cut across malaria has no muslim version it's always malaria and if you really want to deal with it you have to deal with it just as malaria and so the in fact the joke we had was that the muslim the mosquitoes that bite the muslims on friday in the mosque flies to the church on sunday to bite my people and that's how we all get malaria so once we realize our common in common concerns malaria is easy enough but equally important for example the whole issue of good governance one of the things i have been most disappointed in is that even in the whole area of fight against corruption we have not seen sufficient sufficient coming up of religious leaders together to push this agenda we tried once in a while i remember once called a meeting we managed to call the meeting a bouja of pastors and the imams we came together very interesting discussion got about 50 50 from both sides put together in one room which already was a great achievement but they spent two hours discussing the role of pastors and imams in the war against corruption and we suddenly found that we are talking the same language by the time we left there people were asking for one another's phone numbers and that meant they were started communicating this is just a typical example if we started discussing about whether jesus is god or just a prophet we will still be sitting there fighting because that's not really important for me a catholic that jesus is god is absolutely important but i do know that i cannot start discussion on that basis so these are the issues nigeria everybody has multiple identities even though i'm a cardinal i'm not only a christian i also happen to be a european man and i also have my own political feelings and as a european man i share my urbanness with other people who don't even belong to my church and my political idea may also cut across borders and i think we should be aware of this and that is why we who are the religious field ought not to think that everything is to be settled within the context and bit of religion we do our best the question i keep asking myself how can we turn religion into the asset that it should be instead of a liability to our nation how can we do that and we have a whole range for me i have a whole range of conditions if religion is not to become a problem it must be sincere it must be free the government must respect everybody we must respect one another and all such simple simple simple things that we have to think seriously about otherwise we may then leave the ground field for those whom dr bubagi has described as the charlatans they will take over the they will be the ones whom the newspapers will be talking about because they are making a lot of noise so one of the areas where um one hopes that there's shared a shared understandings is this whole question of hate speech and there's there's an old song in in uh from broadway that says you must be carefully taught to hate so a final question that i'd like to ask dr obi and then we'll open it up for your questions is with there's a rise in hate speech in nigeria where do you see action coming from government leaders from religious leaders you know what what are what are the urgent things that are happening or should be happening i think that um you know earlier we said you must go to the root cause of any situation that that troubles you the hate speech is um is a symptom of deeper issues uh some of the hate space is that some of the hate spaces that we get to hear are emanating from political torsos and the people who are feeling uh that they are the losers as against those who think they are the winners and sometimes the winners acting like losers um then some of the hate speech comes from a sense of feeling excluded so the absence of inclusive leadership can be a driver for hate species some of the hate speech hate species come from the fact that we have not generated enough economic prosperity to give people a stick in the nigerian society and the only way that they can vent their angst at everybody is hate speech now if we identify the different drivers of hate species we would know the hate species being organized in a systematic way by those who want to exploit the political game that those species will bring and then we would i would know how to deal with that then we would look at the issues of really growing our economy because the truth is no matter what religion the nigerian belongs to at that first straight at that first track that i spoke about when they gather to share the booties of corruption they don't ask themselves which god you preach to they simply organized with a common purpose they raise corruption and they practice it that's the elite class now when it comes to the issue of economic benefits nobody at that level worries about the religion when it comes to the problems of inequality the christian woman the muslim woman is at the at behind the curve in terms of their opportunities economically so how do we begin to disrupt the prevalent thinking that you can use and exploit religion as a basis to explain a way why your situation is the way it is when as a matter of fact it's the failure of governance that has consigned many of our citizens whether they be from the north or they be from the east or the west to a place of exclusion and inability to have equality of opportunity to be productive this leads me to an important point of the hate species as it consents right now an ultimatum that was given for the first of october that the people from the east should vacate the northern part of the country that for example would have been a great opportunity for the religious leaders from the south christians from the north christians from the you know christians muslims to get together to sort of say what are you talking about this is nigeria this is the country of every one of us nobody has a right to exclude any other that in that kind of a situation religion would play a good role because majority of the people who are may be waiting for first of october to do anything harmful are not going to do it on the basis of anything other than we heard from those who should know so now those who should know are not reflecting the shared values of society everywhere that you see a problem in nigeria today i say that analytical analytical conversation can change the outcome analytical conversation in the sense that we want to show to people that those primordial things that they are thinking are the drivers of their situation and really not the drivers we have had failed governance of 57 years and this governance has not produced enough to be distributed equitably as much as possible to all people at 61 poverty in our country there is no christian flag to it there's no muslim flag to it we need to change the narrative of our economic production and the way to do it is to really put economics at the center of our conversation at this time on everything about restructuring of any reorganization it has to be how do we make nigeria become an economically prosperous country where people regardless of where they come from regardless of what language they speak can feel a sense that they have a stake in this common entity called nigeria our diversity is the best asset that we have unfortunately those who would love to extract out of nigeria are political class and they are all over the country they are christian they are muslim they are east they are west they are not they are south they don't there is nothing other than an extractive mentality driving the division that they lead and that's what we should disrupt when the last session was discussing the issue of leadership i was saying to myself what we need is disruptive leadership the kind of leadership that simply says we don't care i don't i don't look at you and see you first as anything other than a human being because i see you first as a human being what i would be thinking about is what are the strengths that you have that you would bring into the production of a greater nigeria that is prosperous and that enables people to have equality of opportunity to this to decide what kinds of outcomes they can work hard to achieve thank you for that colonel john and yes i just want to say that the religious leaders were not totally silent on the ultimatum we did try to make some common statements which didn't get as much resonance in the press as the ultimatum itself dr bugazhi did you want to comment on that yeah i think i think the problem is basically it resolves now the government did move into bringing leaders who actually went round and talked to people and i think if you look at the social media on this particular issue there has been a lot of community positive community reaction in kano i've seen young people coming out you know and with the hashtag you know that we're for unity and nobody is going to separate us and that people should feel safe which i think is a very good development but i just want to make a very quick comment on this very important point of how religious leaders can actually help achieve good governance that there is there is a lot of room for that and there is a lot of demand for that and i remember attending a seminar also of religious you know the role of religious leaders in fighting corruption and that needs to be sustained because like many Nigerians here will testify in the last few elections that we have had you will find a governor who has clearly rigged the elections and everybody knows that he has rigged the elections because he's done right in front of so many people it's not something that you need to and the first visitors will be this group of scholars i mean religious leaders in my own part of the country muslim religious leaders will go in a group and pray for this governor that god should help him and i sometimes say okay if they if this prayer ever gets you know answered where are we going to be you know the point i'm making is that they need to and i i i did take on some of them because i brought him a hadith of the prophet that says anybody who took a seat of leadership that he knows he does not actually desire god will be angry with him for the next 40 years his you know his prayers his worship is not going to be accepted and this is a very powerful hadith and most of them said they did not know about it but these are the kind of things that we need to and this is why knowledge is important and a lot of things can be done it can change you know the whole way we look at things but these are the things that are required at the moment and i need to say that massive education massive education is and and i'm not just saying just education but education that is that has quality that has relevance and education that leads to skills and education that has the right messaging because with the right messaging in education we actually will grow Nigerians when we're going to grow people who understand that even our population is an asset for us because then we shift our focus from this oil based economic obsession that has not delivered anything beyond a miserable 2435 GDP per capita for us when a country like singapore that gained independence just about the same time as us are on a fast journey to 60 000 dollars income per capita without even having any form of natural resources i think that when we emphasize the citizens more than we emphasize natural resources suddenly all of these identities will become only important from fusing into a nation of people with a common identity walking toward a common vision driven by shared values and this is why we need curriculum number four and you know i just one final question and that is a lot of conversation is about the fact that Nigeria will become the third largest country it's on the pathway to doing that with this enormous youth population and you've spoken of education the importance of understanding the core tenets of faith how what is the role of religion in reaching out to this growing population this youth population so that you're on the track to the future that dr obé has just articulated as opposed to division further division cardinal john the demographic issue is quite uh is a matter of great concern on the one hand i agree perfectly well with dr obé that we don't have to see human beings as only my ability mouse to feed and all that but they are human beings they are assets they have brains to produce and so on which means our population uh should not get should not be something we should be scared about however these populations must be properly educated otherwise they become indeed a ticking bomb and i am not so sure whether those who rule us right now are reading this sign is this um science of the time as for education is the education is not only religious education if a part of the problem is that the education system in Nigeria has so collapsed that there is not part of the casualties also religious education now how do we how do we recover apart from the few who attend our Sunday schools our our madrasas and so on where you have time to teach something that could happen that many don't even have access to any religious education there's also what kind of religious education are you giving if a part of the problem we are having even with hate speeches is that some religious education actually promote hate speech because we we are not in control of how religious teachers are taught and what are they teaching what are they preaching it's a major issue so i know there are many very expert knowledgeable people out there uh will i'm going to take if i may three questions and then we'll roll them up so let's start one you'd your hand up first two and then three way in the back it's over the first gentleman you could say who you are my name is Simon Ateba from Simon Ateba News Africa one of the biggest problem in Nigeria is tribalism uh how do you think that tribalism can religion can be used to address tribalism because it seems to be so deep that from the Igbo perspective for instance do we see the ultimate term that was given to the Igbo by the AUSAs and ignore the fact that some Igbo youth were trying to secede from Nigeria and from the AUSA perspective do we see the other one the AUSA trying to leave Nigeria so how can we use religion to you know defeat tribal okay uh number two the man in the purple shirt and then number three was yeah back there i am dr donald uh jukun do my things uh we have a crisis presently and i'm so concerned uh while we're here deliberating on peace and unity as we speak right now there's genocide going on in southeast nigeria or biafra land i'm in biafra i am tired of seeing my people being killed over and over again as we speak over 700 people are missing only 60 people are in the prison and the those missing are no cannot be accounted for i want to know what the united states government is doing and i need are we seriously plead for immediate assistance for united nation presence to be in southeast nigeria as we speak they are being obliterated out of the i mean they are being snatched young for their home and taking to unknown destinations so my question to you to the audience to the panelists over the years and currently the nigerian delegates send people to such meetings like this and over the years they have they have mastered their manner regimes and and walked on their decorum and can come here and and then showcase uh they are they are their decency on an international stage like this but then they go home and they turn to monsters so what are you doing to the killing going on right now as we speak in nigeria southeast nigeria biafra land thank you thank you and our third questioner in the back hello my name is day one i'm on research internet the magistrate first of all thank you very much for your very excellent inspiring speech and i was wondering that what are the ideal picture or the steps needed that could reach to the that could make the co that could make the coexistence of the old religions and then could prosper to the the economy prosperity for the nigeria so i believe that what could be the role of i think it would be the efforts of really needed all generation of all regions and what could be their roles to make it make it come on make it come to under the same goal thank you all right tribalism biafra and what are the steps one of the one i will say one of the providential things about religions in nigeria is that often they cut across tribes but by the way almost all nigerians are converts my father was a convert from our uroba religion and most nigerians are probably second generation christians or muslims and therefore if in my church my church in abuja i have people from almost every tribe now i don't know how much this this phenomenon plays also into a tribal cohesion because after they leave the church people still go back to their different tribes but we try our best to make people within the church different depending on in the respect of a world what tribe they belong to to be able to see one another as christians and then ask nigerians as for am i just to talk about biafra all i want to say all i want to say about that issue is that we have made statements at the catholic bishops conference on the matter and a recent recent statement has come out from the bishop of umahia who is on this spot i hope he is not a monster he spoke very clearly about what is happening i think i can understand people who may feel very agitated we are in the same way i'm going back to that country to my in the next few days and we are all alert at whatever is happening i want to say whether i want to make it clear that no nigerian there are many nigerians who are concerned about that issue many of us are and we shall not just be quiet and wait for a whole section of our country to be exterminated those are very strong words coming out but i can understand for the comments yeah so let me start with his um so what do you do uh in order to foster the coexistence i think that a lot of what we said here already addressed that one key point is that the leader of a country must inspire the country to mobilize forces toward a set vision i think that the role of the leader as a source of inspiration is something that we need to work on as a people because if the leader sets the tone then what would happen is that leadership at different levels would read what tone is being set whether they be religious leaders or they be academic leaders or they be uh entrepreneurs or private sector business leaders or community leaders they read that tone and they would accordingly translate and it would speculate at the different levels of leadership basic definition of leadership for me is the capacity to mobilize group resource toward a set objective so we need that we need our leader to rise up in stature of being an inspiration to the entire nation with multiplicity of diversities and to create a business for inclusiveness that sense of inclusion can deal with many of the simmering issues that agitate different parts of the country that's one number two is that the young demographics that you pointed out are actually be turned off religion because of the way that religion is being exploited and that's not proper that's not right i also am the wife of a pastor i see clearly that when children see feel that especially this generation next when they look at religion and they see it as a tool for creating disaffection and division or that religion detaches from the values that it should project they have a problem with it so it means that we need to make an effort to turn religion into an asset and that would come from the way that the leaders of religion reflect the truthfulness of religion and finally on the on the matter of agitations in the south east you know one of the things that is very clear to me is that in a sense of a sense of unity of one country is really fundamental for the greatness of Nigeria when i look at Nigeria i just see a country that pulls itself back simply by not aggregating all of its strengths in every zone every region of Nigeria are incredible strengths that need to be mobilized in the current situation where there was the Nigerian military responding to a situation in the north in the southeast one of the things i said clearly and publicly is that our president must separate any criminality from a punishment as it were of an entire ethnic group that clinical separation is important because if you don't do that as the leader you sow the seed for greater division and that's not what we need now in the years ahead less than 10 years from now oil will have no significance to a to many countries that are moving toward electric cars and all kinds of other solutions now if we don't get our senses right and understand that we would only have ourselves and the oil to drink because nobody is going to buy we will continue to quarrel over things that don't matter because there is a gap in inspirational kind of leadership that says to us our strengths together are greater than the things that divide us the world ahead is the world of blockchain technology internet of things it's the world of simulation science big data it's the world of the robotics it's a world that is totally radically different from the one that we have our children want that world they don't want the one that takes us to all of these primordial instincts that have not enabled us become the great nation that we could be and so i hope that for us when we have these kinds of conversations they create a basis for us to see the things that we can do even at the individual level but most of all leadership that is inclusive leadership that sets the tone leadership that makes religion an asset and the basis for the bedrock of values that we need that exactly is what we should be seeing from the different cascading levels of leadership thank you dr obi did you want to comment on this maybe very quickly because i agree with the points that have been made i just thought for clarity maybe we need to say that we are not representing a general government here we are citizens and we're equally victims you know of some of the failures of this regime so i think people should make it very clear that we are not presenting the Nigerian government so we are not going to defend or join you know in these kind of issues we are basically here as citizens and we are all worried about what is happening we have expressed it some of our colleagues you know who are on the table there have written about it we have done meetings severely that has helped in curtailing some of the consequences that we are seeing so we are quite confident and our questions is very clear of the work that we have done i know the work that the cardinal and the sultan have done in these times of crisis they have a platform they are meeting very soon and they are working on some of this issue that have been raised here so i'm quite confident that we shall eventually overcome but maybe also i should talk to the fact that as citizens and especially informed senior citizens we are all worried about what is happening and it's not that nobody is doing anything there are lots of other efforts that are being done i mean she is heading a whole group doing so many things and what we are discovering in fact is the need for us to and i think the major point that has been made by kingsley in the last panel it all boils down to leadership and what we need is our christians and our muslims and all stakeholders come together from the experiences we have had in the last you know 20 years to see what exactly are the kind of leaders we require to get us out of the woods and this is where we need to bring in all the religions together and by the time they come together and focus on this issue of leadership we'll begin to because a lot of what he said you know the questions are symptoms and we're trying to get to the roots and leadership is key so i think for me we don't even the religious issues that appear to be a problem can easily be resolved once you have the right kind of leadership as far as the religious leadership under his leadership and the sultan a lot has been achieved and we are so happy with their own closeness friendship and continuous contact and working together that's what's going to i'm confident that we shall overcome we're going to take one more quick round of questions um and starting with you sir and then go into the back if we can stage the mics yes um thank you my name is uh kingsley margallow most recently a professor at the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tofts university and i'm going to ask you to keep it short very short indeed i shall resist the temptation to become another panelist um but i have a very quick one and that's to the two religious leaders one of them represented by dr bagha do you not think that one of the biggest problems we have in nigeria and one of the reasons we have instability a lot is the outsized role of religion in public life i thought we were a secular state but we find in nigeria the intrusion of religion in every aspect of our public life in the constitution in governance in the in the politicization of public holidays in everything and because of that you have a lot of instability because faith is is is is a very very visceral thing and people want their own faith then to be in control if they feel that another faith being in control makes them to lose their rights or to lose their entitlements so so the question of religion in public life i think needs to be addressed yeah okay and final question yes nathan weininger with the 21st century wilberforce initiative um my question is regarding us policymakers and decision makers going into nigeria um and another life i worked on an Ebola project we did a massive training in Ghana and at the end of it we realized that we didn't do anything about religion about funerary rights we had not talked about that at all because we were ignorant of the role of religion in west africa what are westerners who are making decisions ignorant of about the role of religion in nigeria okay esteemed panelists yes yes it has been known to be the preferred position of most christian leaders that the role of religion in the state apparatus should be considerably reduced if possible practically reduced to the minimum and we have also felt that part that would have that would reduce a lot of the interreligious the reasons for religious clashes because it turns out that many of our religious clashes as a result of rivalry over who has more than who and we felt that the easiest way in a country like nigeria where we have many religions the best thing for government is to deal with religion as little as possible but now the problem is that even though we hold that position government continue to insist on uh dragging in religion in one way or the other and before you know where you are people are saying where is our own typical example we always felt that government has no business with pilgrimages well for as long as there are for as long as there are mostly governments that are fully supporting islamic pilgrimages immediately christians give us our own too so we begin to have pilgrimages to jerusalem which many people never thought about that's a typical example of how we are giving ourselves a problem my hope is that if there is indeed going to be a thorough going review of our constitution or not just review new constitution we will take the concept of circularity of state more seriously my sense also is that a citizen's driven constitutional process that would place productivity and competitiveness as the core bedrock of values that drive the way that we are organized in nigeria would begin to place religion and every other thing within the context that they can best function and not be the key drivers on the basis of which we measure and say oh how many christians are there how many muslims are there productivity and competitiveness as core values are important for us it would take care of some of those kinds of challenges of religion being too dominant in the conversation that we have in public life and then secondly for the us policymakers i think that the most significant thing that can happen is to take the lead from the progress that we make in the way that we shape our our own capacity to deliver governance for as long as we do not have capable state if the state remains weak then we're going to need the us policy maker at an aggravated level we don't have to need the us policy maker to come to nigeria to help us deliver services to our citizens i think nigeria has come of age enough for us to have the mechanics for delivering basic services to our people so what does that say to us it says to us that it is urgent for nigeria to work in nigeria that works is the most important thing that i want to talk about in nigeria that functions in nigeria that takes its place and can deliver basic services to the citizens we have three to four million young people joining the unemployment queue every year it's a time bomb we don't have the luxury to gather in washington and have this conversation it's a time bomb so the state the nation state must function everything that we discuss about religion is just a tiny symptom of the fact that we're dealing with a disastrous case of a fragile state situation how do you go from fragility to a strengthened capacity of the nation state to deliver basic services that would lift people out of poverty that's a conversation and so when we talk about restructuring reorganizing nigeria i am one person saying let's have that conversation but let it not be political restructuring that the political class will hijack again let it be economic governance and structure that would enable nigeria become a leading economy in less than a decade i believe that it can be done and it should be done can i just come in i think kinsley has actually hear the answer to his question because kinsley as you know too well the issue of role of religion is a factor of the quality or lack of it as it were for leadership in any case we are free as citizens to decide in our constitution what role we are going to give for religion so let's go into dialogue but i think the religion is becoming if you like so prominent because of the absence of quality leadership we are soon going to go into an election and all of us nigerians know that currently the mechanism for recruitment of leadership within our political parties are faulty and the current political parties that we have including the ruling party i'm part of has become cash and carry and the only people who can emerge out of this are crooks and we know this now this is where we need kinsley we need the cardinal we need the sultan we need all citizens that are really concerned how do we fix that you leadership recruitment mechanism in our political parties that is the major thing once we get the kind of leadership that you described the kind of leadership that she says will get us out of this situation one with vision that can motivate and inspire and has an understanding of the world in the 21st century we are not going to be bothered about the issue that we're bothered now because it is because of the absence of that leadership because we have not been able to solve some of the basic problems people are falling back on religion there is nothing else to fall back on to and this is the problem and i do hope that as citizens we will see the agency of getting the right type of leadership and we have them it's not that we don't have them it's just that they don't have money so all we need to do is to make sure that the system that recruits leadership has been recalibrated such that people with the competence with the capacity with the knowledge with the courage that is required are the ones that are going to imagine it's our own business and citizens to make sure that we do that thank you we unfortunately are out of time but that's a wonderful place to end i think with the call to action from all three of our very distinguished panelists thank you for the wisdom that you've brought to us today thank you for the leadership that each of the three of you are providing thank you for your questions and for being with us here today and please join me in thanking all three Cardinal John Dr. Obey Dr. Bugadje for being here with us today and for everything they do for Nigeria stay with us it's my great pleasure to welcome to the podium acting assistant secretary for the bureau of conflict and stabilization operations the acting assistant secretary Tom Hushik who is an important partner for this effort he's been incredibly supportive um acting assistant secretary Hushik is a career foreign service officer he was most recently the deputy chief of mission at the u.s mission to the international organizations at Vienna he's also served in Dushan Bay Tajikistan in colonial Micronesia and Tom i'm pretty sure i first met you in Pakistan so he uh he has had a chance to serve all over the world and i want to thank you so much for your support and partnership on this important program and please welcome assistant secretary Tom Hushik thank you very much thank you thanks Nancy and um this is one of my favorite projects that we're supporting from the bureau of conflict and stabilization operations so i'm very glad to to be here with you this this afternoon it's always a little worrisome coming right after lunch but i i thought i'd give it a shot anyways and it doesn't sound like um things were getting sleepy after that last panel so that's good um and also i'm sorry to have missed um much of the day's conversations but i did get a good brief and i've been getting some tweets along the way so i have a sense of the discussion so far so um i'm glad to be able to at least deliver some remarks towards the end of your program nigeria nigeria is a critical u.s partner in africa unfortunately it's full potential both for its own people and in partnership with us is held back by a number of conflicts but fortunately nigeria has a deep pool of homegrown expertise many of whom are here today and intellect from which to draw friends from the international community and the energy needed to overcome the obstacles it faces it's our pleasure as partners to help advance nigerians own efforts to surmount their country's challenges supporting efforts like those of the senior working group are the heart of our contribution to this goal and as i mentioned one of my favorite projects that we're working on no country's growth is without challenges of course today's discussions have been a chance to look at some of the challenges nigeria confronts but also a chance to raise our sights towards the opportunities for overcoming them i hope what you discussed here today will help as we build as we pursue a brighter future together too often it's easy to fall into the trap of analyzing what's what's wrong without moving past the diagnosis to find the remedies problem solving requires that we identified identify potential solutions and also practical means to implement them i appreciated the senior working groups august op-ed piece i'm speaking about threats to nigeria stability it said the drivers of these varying conflicts differ in nature but find their remedy in the constitutional responsibility of the state that is the protection of lives and property provision of education in short creating an enabling environment that safeguards the flourishing of citizens and those within its borders so our own research at the bureau of conflict and stabilization operations supports this perspective our analysis shows that countries with above average levels of state sanctioned violence and abuse for example cases where the state is failing its fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens that those states face double the risk of terrorist organizations emerging as a senior working group member noted and i'm sorry i can't remember which one it was peace is not just the absence of conflict what happens when citizens have grievances but no channel through which they feel they will be heard history teaches and data show that people will take matters into their own hands sometimes violently and they resort to desperate actions that they believe are the only options left for redress the feelings about authorities ignoring their needs and suppressing their rights might be based in fact or they might not the impact is the same though because this is a if it's a commonly shared perception in these situations trust and tradition can quickly erode this undermines stability and belies the purported success that we often declare as governments as secretary tillerson my boss pointed out at the community of democracies ministerial he hosted earlier this month governments that uphold democratic principles and practices result in safer healthier more secure and more prosperous societies they listen then speak rather than speaking without listening they build trust these are these are aspirations sometimes the ones we are always trying to to live up to and this is why the upcoming 2019 elections are critical for nigerious continued prosperity and stability elections that are free fair and peaceful will ensure that democratic gains continue to be consolidated that politicians hear the will of the people achieving stability or building a durable peace is fundamentally a political endeavor it requires both immediate and longer-term actions that empower representatives and accountable government institutions as well as civil actors and groups to resolve disputes before they become violent and to quell violence should it break out by showing that they are responsive to people's needs real and perceived leaders build trust and encourage durable peace yet how do we translate these principles into action that's the question as discussed today any effort must be tailored to the local political and security environment some examples from the discussion this week include and this is going from my tweets in my briefing strengthening the responsiveness of state institutions to the wide array of early warning networks that are being built out there addressing perceptions before they become realities such as a perception that herder farmer conflicts are solely christian muslim conflicts increasing transparency and enforcing accountability for those who abuse their positions for personal gain or supporting existing forums like the northern governor's forum to find synergies to tackle causes of conflicts that cross state boundaries many more were mentioned but these are just a sampling with these we all all recognize the need for contextualized implementation plans yet yet well defined and tailored plans will lead to nothing without a key ingredient and that's commitment stated in a meeting earlier this week I think this is a quote piece is the objective but piece is complex it's a simple quote but it tells you a lot no complex challenge the very ones that have been discussed today will be solved without commitment to paraphrase the president's question from last week do we have enough strength and pride to confront the challenges threats and conflicts we face today so that we can enjoy peace and prosperity tomorrow and if we're looking for commitment we need to look no further than our guests of the senior working group they have had distinguished careers in the military and government and education and journalism and as spiritual leaders they and many of their colleagues as civic leaders in Nigeria play a hugely important role in moving towards peace at the center of their efforts is a commitment to see their country be in a better place on a better trajectory to the future I think that is what we all want for our respective countries and for the world what often differentiates efforts leading to success from those leading to failure or not leading to success are the differences between we should we want to and we will on the one hand we can think I want to but we can't do the thing we want because the factors are outside of our control or we think I should do something as some theoretical or intellectual ideal but saying we will requires courage political courage it requires commitment and it requires action when getting to action it's easy to get lost in contextualizing and analyzing the minutiae the details of the plans those are all important steps don't get me wrong and we work on those a lot in my bureau at the State Department but we must get beyond the should to the I want to to the we will so it's important to emphasize an obvious point on that line today's discussions are not the final word on how to advance durable peace in Nigeria durable peace will require constant dialogue around solutions between multiple levels of Nigerian society esteemed leaders such as the senior working group included state governments federal government and other influential Nigerians from business and civil society rather I'm hopeful that the opportunities and options explored today provide a guide for action practical action whether and how to address stability beyond just the provision of security or how to build a peace through strengthened governance or religious dialogue the task remaining is to identify those opportunities and options that Nigerians want implemented the best options are those that both should be implemented and that people want to implement it is at that intersection that commitment forms much has already been done toward that end and much is is still being done I commend those of you gathered here today for your years of dedication to this effort the U.S. partnership with Nigeria also is not one of we should be partners but one that we are partners and that we will be partners moving forward so it's been a pleasure to be here with you even at the end of the day and I look forward to continued collaboration with your working group thank you Tom thank you very much for that closing set of remarks this brings to a conclusion the public portion of our program for this afternoon a special thanks goes out to the Bureau of Conflict and African pardon me conflict and stabilization operations at the Department of State and also for the Bureau of African Affairs this has been a absolutely wonderful program today and this does in fact conclude it and our deliberations with the senior working group will carry on this afternoon and until tomorrow but this does bring to a conclusion the public portions of the program and we like to express our deep appreciation for all of you who have come from outside of the building to be with us this morning thank you