By Fatima Mohammed-Lawal
Ilorin – Prof. Sulyman Abdulkareem, the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, has urged the Federal Government to ensure strict control on access to guns by hoodlums to wreak havoc on law-abiding citizens.
Abdulkareem gave the advice in Ilorin on Tuesday while receiving Prof. Ibrahim Gambari (CFR), former Minister of External Affairs, in his office.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gambari was in the university to chair the 4th Biennial Conference of the Centre for Ilorin Studies (CILS).
The vice-chancellor expressed shock at how score-settling in the society had suddenly changed from the traditional exchange of blows to the use of sophisticated machine guns.
He, therefore, suggested that Nigerians must engage themselves in soul-searching to pave way for the nation’s rediscovery to the path of rectitude.
“Perhaps people are grieved because of perceived injustice; an average Nigerian now wants to outsmart the other.
‘‘We are now in a society where we don’t care how people get rich. It is even sad that people are ready to take lives to get rich.
‘‘Things have totally broken down. We have introduced so many sentiments that have divided us,” he said.
Abdulkareem also advocated for correct perception of justice and the need to deal with each other with a clear mind, while working for a peaceful nation.
Earlier, Gambari advised the government to spend money on preventing insecurity in the country instead of devoting huge sums of the nation’s resources to combat insecurity.
He observed that the greatest threat to the unity and progress of any nation was insecurity.
Gambari, Africa’s first Under-Secretary-General and former Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Africa, described his presence in the university as homecoming.
He said that he was in the university to support the Centre for Ilorin Studies and contribute his quota to the citadel of learning.