Vice President Atiku Abubakar spoke Sunday at a ceremony marking the first anniversary of a series of bloody attacks that killed thousands last year, in reaction to the deaths of 19 soldiers killed on a peace mission to Zaki-Biam town. There he stated his dissatisfaction with how people who are not considered indigenous in an area are having their rights denied. "It beats my imagination when I hear some Nigerians are being denied their right to participate in politics in some places because they are regarded as non-indigenes,” the Vice President was quoted by the Daily Champion as saying. Pointing out that the constitution did not recognize any ethnic group as being indigenous to any state, Abubakar said it was wrong to discriminate against people based on their ethnic background, and that the federal government was displeased that long-time residents in some parts of the country were still being called settlers.
