President Muhammadu Buhari has said that neither ethnicity nor religion is to blame for the myriad of problems facing the country, “but we ourselves,” for inherent injustices.

President Buhari in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, came to this conclusion after reflecting on the complexities of the Nigerian condition.

Speaking at an event in Abuja, the president said, “Our problem is not ethnicity or religion, it is ourselves. After my third appearance in the Supreme Court, I came out to speak to those who were present then. I told them that from 2003, I’d spent 30 months in court.

The President of the Court of Appeal, the first port of call for representation by presidential candidates then, was my classmate in secondary school in Katsina. We spent six years in the same class, Justice Umaru Abdullahi.

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My legal head was Chief Mike Ahamba, a Roman Catholic and an Ibo man. Ahamba insisted that a letter should be sent to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to present the register of constituencies in some of the States, to prove that what they announced was falsehood. It was documented.

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When they gave judgment, another Ibo man, the late Justice Nsofor, asked for the reaction from INEC to the letter sent to them. They just dismissed it.

We went to the Supreme Court. Who was the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN)? A Hausa-Fulani like me, from Zaria. The members of the panel went in for about 30 minutes, came back to say they were proceeding on break. They went for 3 months. When they came back, it didn’t take them 15 minutes, they dismissed us.

In 2007, who was the CJN? Kutigi. Again, a Muslim from the North. After 8 months or so, he dismissed the case. Again in 2011, because I was so persistent, Musdafa, a Fulani man like me, from Jigawa, neighbour to my state, was a CJN. He dismissed my case.

I’ve taken you round this to prove that our problem is not ethnicity or religion. It is ourselves. I refused to give up. I had tried to wear Agbada after what happened to me in Khaki.”