A Republic is founded on the equality of all its citizens irrespective of where they come from, who their ancestors or what their sex is. Citizenship itself defines the bundle of rights and obligations that flow from the complex relationships between a sovereign country, its territory and its citizens. The noxious dichotomy between indigenes and settlers seeks to destroy the notion of equal citizenship on which our country is founded, alienating some and enhancing insecurity as a result.

It lacks serious legal or moral bases and in most cases, the consequence is conflict, gross violations of human rights and the destruction of communities. Because, in most cases, the victims always fight back to regain their rights.
The extent of how problematic is the indigene/settler dichotomy is easily best appreciated in close proximity to its victims. For most of my life, I lived within my own state in south-eastern Nigeria, which is where my parents and grandparents before them had also lived, except for the period of my under-graduate programme and thereafter National Youth Service Corps which I did in western and north-western Nigeria respectively.  I began to appreciate the extent of the powder-keg that is the indigene/settler problem in May, 2010 in the course of a project being carried out partly by my office to intervene in the Jos crisis. Until then, I had always considered the crisis in Jos solely a religious/tribal thing