By Joy Odor Reportcircle News
Abuja became a convergence point for Nigeria’s unfinished national conversation on Thursday as political leaders, youth voices and peace advocates gathered for the Nigeria First Unity Summit 2025, an event that framed unity not as a slogan, but as a survival strategy.
Convened by the City Boy Movement under the theme “Peace, Unity and Security: A Collective Responsibility,” the summit unfolded as one of the most forceful interventions this year into Nigeria’s security and cohesion debate.
From the opening session to the final panel, one message rang clear: the country’s future will be decided as much by narratives and civic responsibility as by policy and force.
The gathering drew senior government officials, development partners, civil society actors and youth leaders into the same room, signaling an intentional effort to close the widening gap between power, perception and the people.
Setting the tone early, Dr. Emmanuel Mamman, Director at the National Peace Academy, delivered the welcome address on behalf of the Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR).
His message was direct and sobering.
Nigeria’s fractures, he argued, cannot be managed with silence or denial. Sustained dialogue, peace education and proactive conflict prevention must return to the centre of national planning.
The summit, he noted, fits squarely within IPCR’s mandate to rebuild trust and strengthen the country’s fragile social fabric across ethnic, religious and regional lines.
The summit’s most anticipated intervention came from Dr. Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, who delivered a sharp warning on the growing power of misinformation.
In a media-saturated era, Bwala said, narratives now travel faster than facts and can do more damage than bullets.
He cautioned that divisive rhetoric and falsehoods have become tools of modern destabilisation, capable of eroding trust and igniting conflict without a single shot fired.
He reaffirmed the Tinubu administration’s commitment to transparent communication and national unity, pushing back against claims that Nigeria is locked in ethnic or religious warfare.
“This is not a war of identities,” he insisted, “but a collective fight against criminality.”
Turning to young Nigerians, Bwala challenged them to wield their digital influence responsibly. Nigeria’s story, he said, must be told “with truth, with balance, and with dignity.”
Infrastructure, Security and the Cost of Disunity
Dr. Musa Babayo, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), expanded the conversation beyond rhetoric, drawing a direct line between insecurity and economic paralysis.
Insecurity, he explained, does not only take lives, it shuts down trade routes, disrupts mobility and weakens national integration. Roads, often overlooked, are critical arteries for military operations, humanitarian access and commerce.
Unity, Babayo argued, is not optional. Without peace, development stalls; without shared responsibility, peace collapses.
He urged Nigerians to resist divisive narratives and embrace responsible citizenship as a pillar of national survival.
In one of the summit’s most emotionally charged moments, Francis Oluwatosin Shoga, Director-General of the City Boy Movement, confronted what he described as dangerous mischaracterisations of Nigeria’s security challenges.
What the country faces, he said, is neither genocide nor ethnic cleansing, but a nationwide assault by criminal networks that recognise no tribe, faith or region.
Framing the crisis as sectional, he warned, only deepens division and weakens collective response.
Shoga urged Nigerians and the international community to stop exporting false labels onto Nigeria’s reality. “This is not North versus South or Christian versus Muslim,” he declared. “This is a national emergency.”
He commended the efforts of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and security agencies, while calling on citizens to actively support peace-building initiatives at both government and community levels.
Delivering the keynote address, Mr. Chukwemeka Mbah shifted the spotlight to Nigeria’s youth and the digital spaces they dominate. Social media, he argued, has become a powerful force in shaping national identity capable of mobilising unity or amplifying chaos.
While digital platforms empower voices, Mbah warned that misuse fuels misinformation and political manipulation.
He challenged young Nigerians to see themselves as “digital peace ambassadors,” stressing that unity now begins with what is posted, shared and amplified online.
A high-energy panel session titled “Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” unpacked the double-edged role of digital platforms in peace and conflict.
Experts examined cyberbullying, hate speech and misinformation, alongside the positive role of social media in civic mobilisation and youth engagement.
The consensus was firm: social media is too powerful to be left unchecked by responsibility.
As the Nigeria First Unity Summit 2025 drew to a close, delegates left with more than communiqués and soundbites.
The summit reinforced a hard truth Nigeria’s stability will not be secured by the government alone.
Peace, unity and security, speakers agreed, will be shaped by the daily choices of citizens, the stories they tell, and the willingness to act together across divides.
In Abuja, the battle line was redrawn not against one another, but against the forces that thrive on division.
