Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday challenged Nigerians
to abate the growing separatist agitations and debates about the unity of
Nigeria, tasking them to rather channel their energies and resources towards
building a great nation...
Osinbajo made this remark while representing President
Muhammadu Buhari at a feast in commemoration of the Eid-El Kabir celebration in
the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said it was time citizens stopped promoting talks on the division
of Nigeria but should rather concentrate on how Nigeria will attain the level
God has designed it to be.
“Our energies and resources shouldn’t be spent again on the
debate about division. Our manifest destiny is to be a great nation, not to be
a nation where we are talking about division. We must focus our time, our
energies and our resources on being that great nation that God has called us to
be,” he said.
He further described Nigeria as a great nation, blessed with
human and natural resources which he said some other nations of the world had
to embark on a long journey to see.
According to him, the country is so blessed to the extent
that people hold the opinion that one of every four or five black persons in
the world must be a Nigerian, as he went spiritual, pointing out that God
conceived Nigeria as a nation blessed with the diversity of resources and
ideas.
He insisted that it was time to put paid to protracted
controversies which characterize Nigeria’s experience, insisting that Nigeria
is a country ordained by God to remain eternally united.
He emphasised that Nigeria was so rich both in human and
natural resources to the extent that God conceived it to be a honey pot to
other African nations which he said would have to depend on it to survive.
Arguing that he was confident that Nigeria would never
disintegrate, Osinbajo said God designed the country to be a pre-eminent black
nation that is rich in culture, commerce and technology.
“I am one of those who are extremely confident that our
nation will remain united because I am convinced that God’s plans and purpose
for Nigeria are that we would be the preeminent black nation in the world.
“This is a nation that will show forth in culture, in
technology and in commerce, God’s investment in the black race. This is why
today, some people say out of four blacks, some say five, one must be a
Nigerian. That is not a mean attainment at all.
“That nation that God has in mind is a diverse nation,
diverse in resources, in ideas, in opinions – kind of nation that we have,
where there is an argument about something everywhere. Before you get tired of
that lone argument, another one arises and before you finish with that one,
there is yet another one.
“This is the type of country that God has ordained where we have
a diversity of opinions, diversity of ideas. People are saying their own things
here and there. But, He has also planned that this country will remain together
and that we’ll be a nation that is gifted just as we have the oil, the gas, and
the most arable land space than most continents.
“This is a country that has all of what other countries will
travel and spend money looking for the sort of resources that we have.
“All of the tourism resources that we have, people will
travel everywhere looking for it.
It is a nation of men and women so creative and prosperous,
that we will feed the entire continent and create opportunities for the world,”
he stated.
The vice-president disclosed that the president was
unavoidably absent at the event because he had to celebrate this year’s Eid-El
Kabir in his Daura country home which he said he had not visited in the last
one year.
Reflecting on the essence of Sallah and its application to
Nigeria today, Osinbajo challenged Nigerians to cultivate the spirit of the
sacrifice made by Abraham when he willingly prepared to sacrifice his only son,
Isaac.
Explaining that Abraham expressed his willingness to make
that sacrifice because he considered it a necessity to fulfil his own destiny,
the vice-president said, even so, all Nigerians, irrespective of their
religious and ethnic leanings, must realise the necessity to make sacrifices
that will help the country attain its own destiny.
“Mr. President is unable to attend because he is celebrating
Sallah at home in Daura. He has not been in Daura for over a year now. So, this
is an important home going for him. The
significance of this celebration was the willingness of Abraham to make the
great sacrifice of possibly the dearest thing to him, his son Isaac.
“Obviously…it was a willingness to make a great sacrifice
and Abraham was able to make that sacrifice. And he made it in order to be able
to fulfil his own destiny and the destiny of his people.
“The message today is that our nation’s elite, Muslims,
Christians and all ethnicities must recognise that we also must make
sacrifices, the sacrifices that are necessary to attain the destiny that God
has brought unto our people. All the different ethnic groups are important in
that arrangement. On every ethnicity, incredible minds, brilliant and creative
people doing all manner of things,” he stated.
He submitted that Nigeria’s current travail is an indication
that like a woman in labour, the time of its breakthrough is at hand.
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