Chairman, Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema has urged Nigerians to drop their ethnic sentiments in favour of building a united and peaceful nation.
Onyema made the call after he was conferred with an honourary Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) at the 9th Convocation Ceremony of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Anambra State on Saturday.
Onyema, who also donated N70 million towards the university’s infrastructure project and pledged the setting up of Nigeria’s first Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies in the institution, regretted that ethno-religious conflicts were pulling the country apart.
“I want to help education. I want to fight the incidence of violence and ethnicity in this country. The greatest bane of our development is ethnicity. That is why I want to set up the first Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies for them (Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Anambra State) by collaborating with the university and making it an elective course for students, so that people will start learning how to manage conflict.
“Conflict is a catalyst for change but it depends on how you manage it. The institute I want to set up here will help Nigerians with the ways and means of managing conflicts to achieve better results,” Onyema said.
The Air Peace boss, who said he was proud of his contribution to dousing ethnic agitations in the Niger Delta and other flash points in the country through his organisation, The Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria (FEHN), assured that he was determined to fix the challenges of the nation’s aviation sector with his airline.
Ethno-religious violence, Onyema assured, could always be efficiently tackled through education and provision of employment opportunities for Nigerians.
