The Federal Government has warned against giving ethnic colouration to crimes and criminality.
It asserted that no ethnic group in Nigeria glorifies crimes or criminality.
Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, insisted that the morality of the African race and Nigeria in particular, abhors all forms of crimes and criminality.
Aregbesola gave the advice in Abuja when he received a delegation from the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC) 14 of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) led by its Commandant, Ayodele Adeleke.
He said Nigerians must equate security with the global picture of a society that puts its emphasis on the dignity of man and human development, stressing further that crime is anathema to the nation.
“One thing we must all resist is the tendency of seeing crime in relation to one ethnic group or another, a criminal is a criminal no matter the ethnic group he or she belongs to. No ethnic group in Nigeria glorifies crime and criminality, so let us all condemn crime. Our morality itself makes crime an unpopular vocation,” he said.
The Minister called on NISS as a security training institution to develop policy analysis that will ensure adequate reorientation of an average Nigerian to see crimes and criminality as they are.
According to him, the institution should begin to think of how it could help Nigerians change the narrative of crime tied to a particular ethnic group and stop prioritising tension and heating up the polity unnecessarily.
He maintained that no good governance could be provided in the atmosphere of chaos.
Aregbesola, who said every Nigerian, has one thing or the other to offer towards the development of the country, called on philanthropists to join hands with Government to empower the less privileged in the society.
He added that such efforts would help reduce the rate of poverty amongst the people, which he said, in most times is a contributory factor to crimes and criminality.