From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

Former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu has admonished young lawyers not to play religion and ethnicity card, which he said has kept the country backward, while in the practice of their profession.

Meanwhile, Senator Mantu has disclosed that those going about killing Christians and burning down churches across the country in the name of Islam are pursuing an agenda that is quite different from the teachings of Islam.

The former senator spoke in Abuja at a reception organised by the law firm of Chukwuma-machukwu Ume (SAN), in honour of some new lawyers who were called to the Nigerian Bar.

He told his audience that the combination of bad leadership, religion and ethnicity are the bane of the country’s under development.

Among the celebrants were Pius Nnadim, Chiderea Okoroma and Rev Sister Winifred Moneme (who bagged a Doctorate degree in both civil and Cannon Law); while the former Nigerian Ambassador to Mali, Ken. Nwachukwu was the guest speaker.

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“To the new wigs, you are now going to face the world. As you do that, please don’t allow yourself to practice what has kept this nation where it is today. I don’t think any of us seated here is happy with the state of affairs in this country today. Nobody is happy, but God loves Nigeria in such a unique way.

“There are few countries in the world that God loves as Nigeria. We have done a research and we have gone round the world to find out that there are seven countries in the world that God loved as much as Nigeria.

What do I mean by that? A country God has provided with everything. We are the most intelligent people in Africa and by extension in the world. God has blessed Nigeria with exceptional intelligence.

“In Africa, we are the only place that you can grow anything that is grown in Europe. Every type of soil is available in Nigeria.

But why haven’t we translated these God given gifts to make our country the richest on earth? Absence of quality leadership has been our bane. As you go out there, if you have a case between your tribesman and somebody else, don’t be carried away by sentiments to say oh! This is my tribesman and by all means, I must help him to win the case against the man from another tribe.

“And let me say this, tribalism, ethnicity is one of the major problem we have in this country that has kept us where we are today,” he said.