Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, on Sunday in Abuja met with traditional rulers from the South East, urging them to impress upon their subjects the need to let peace in the land rather than continuing to reecho agitations for secession.
Recalling the agitation from some of youths in the South-East calling for the creation of Biafra, followed by young people in the North who issued an ultimatum setting a date for the eviction of persons from South-East from the Northern states, he said the nation’s heroes have already paid the supreme price to keep the nation as one indivisible entity.
Nonetheless, he insisted that “the manner of those agitations, the method and objectives are wrong, unlawful and the violation of the laws of Nigeria and the constitution of Nigeria. I want to repeat that both the agitations for secession and the ultimatum to leave the Northern states are wrong and a violation of our constitution.
“Our constitution says in Section 2 that Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state to be known by the name the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that is the law of our country.”
He stressed the administration’s committed to ensuring that the country remains united, because “Nigeria’s unity is one for which enough blood has been spilled and many hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Many have paid for the unity of this country with their lives and it will be wrong of us as men and women of goodwill in this generation to toy with those sacrifices that have been made.”
The acting President therefore urged men and women of goodwill not to tolerate any tendency that drags Nigeria in the direction of yet another civil conflict, blaming the agitations on perceived marginalization, following which safety in the different zones have been compromised in various ways.
He urged all to make things right by doing things right, because “it will be wrong of us to approach even our grievances by threatening to disobey the laws or by threatening the integrity of our nation.”
Osinbajo assured the visitors of the Federal Government’s commitment give a listening ear “to all the reasons, the various suggestions, the various agitations, and the reasons for those agitations and to ensure that we do justice by all persons regardless of where you are from in this country.
“Our greatness lies in our being together and I believe very strongly that as our royal fathers, you will ensure the message is clear to all, that the greatness of any people lies in their ability to work together despite our differences, despite the types of offense that have been caused between each other, the greatness of any community lies in unity,” he said, urging the royal fathers offer “the right directional advice to ensure that our country remains together.”