The Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has revealed his wishes for Nigeria, saying the people if united can build a new nation.
Osinbajo spoke as Special Guest of Honour at
the graduation of the 2017 class of Senior
Course 39 of the Armed Forces Command &
Staff College, Jaji.
His words: "We can build a new nation; a new
nation built on trust, consensus and love for
one another and love for our country is
possible.
"A nation where the rulers do not steal the
commonwealth, where every Nigerian is safe
to live and work, where the State takes
responsibility for the security of each and
every Nigerian, where the State knows every
Nigerian by name and can find and locate
each one of us.
"A Nigeria where the Igbo or Ijaw man can
live peacefully in Sokoto, and the Fulani man
can live peacefully in the Niger Delta."
The Acting President insisted that the elite
were largely to be blamed for the festering
negative narratives.
"I would like to emphasize the fact that this
was essentially an elite phenomenon, unity
and disunity are promoted by the elite which
the vast majority of the Nigerian people are
only later conscripted.
"While we must remain irrevocably committed
to freedom of expression and the tenets of a
free press, we must draw the line between
freedom that conduces to healthy democracy
and that which threatens and endangers the
entire democratic enterprise . It is an
important balance, that we must strike.
Failure in any way will be tragic", he said.
He also observed that the problem was
exacerbated by the influence of the internet
and hate media emphasizing that "today a
great deal of the threats facing Nigeria are
being nurtured and cultivated in the vast
spaces of the Internet.
"The rumblings of secession, the dangerous
quit ultimatums to ethnic groups, the radio
stations and blogs that spew divisive speech
and exploit our fault lines; all of these are
now to be found online.
"The battle is not just to defeat the terrorists,
the greater battle is to defeat the ideology
and mindset that feeds the madness and to
cut off its oxygen, money and publicity.
"The truth is that our nation and national unity
is worth preserving and protecting. We are the
preeminent power in Africa today in terms of
population, size of our markets , naturl resources and economy.
"We are a factor in the geopolitics of the
world, no one can ignore a nation state that is
home to one in every four black persons.
Smaller is weaker not stronger today."
Osinbajo charged the nation to rise above
unproductive ethnic and religious sentiments.
He added, "We must develop the emotional
intelligence required to cope and adapt in a
swiftly and constantly changing world.
"We must adopt a global mindset, that seeks
to learn from the experiences of other
countries, far and near, so that we do not
waste valuable time repeating mistakes that
we should have learned from and learned to
avoid".
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