TODAY Wednesday, October 1, 2014, marks the 54th anniversary of our independence from our colonial genitors, Great Britain. It is a moment of triumph for both countries.
The United Kingdom has just survived a referendum that would have seen the separation of Scotland from the rest of the country if the “ayes” had had it.
And for Nigeria, we are gradually reasserting our territorial integrity after the second bid by separatists to dismember the country and create a new identity out of a nation born exactly one century ago.
The gallant armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have started rolling back the threat of Islamist insurgency group, Boko Haram, which seized several towns in Adamawa and Borno States and claimed them as part of their putative “Islamic Caliphate”.
With victory imminent and in sight, Nigeria will demonstrate, once again, its ability to hold its own against internal insurrection and external aggression.
This is what nations that are viable and will be great can do. And this is a further incentive for Nigerians to rededicate themselves to the unity of our country, knowing that only a united Nigeria can protect Nigerians and provide them the security they need to actualise their individual and collective aspirations.
As we celebrate today, let us pause and reflect on some of the challenges that have stymied our growth and hampered our emergence to a solid economic and continental behemoth in spite of our natural and human endowments. We have held numerous constitutional and national conferences, the last being the recently-concluded edition in July this year. These conferences were meant as avenues to seek solutions to our problems, which are mainly ethnicity, sectionalism, regionalism and politicisation of our religious faiths rather than using them as means of seeking the face of God our Creator and doing His will.
For the original Nigerian dream for which our founding fathers struggled to free us from colonial bondage to be realised, we must cast aside these unwholesome forces of disunity.
We must see one another as people of one indivisible country bound by common destiny. This country belongs to all of us equally, and our constitution has given us all the right to aspire to the highest endeavours.
We must all go with the spirit and letters of our national charter and give to ourselves and our future generations a nation we can all feel at home in, and be proud of.
The whole world knows that the Federal Republic of Nigeria stands on the threshold of economic emergence. We must henceforth play our politics to ensure that we realise the good things that lie in store for this nation.
Happy birthday, Nigeria!
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/happy-54th-independence-anniversary/#sthash.KoaMgcpj.dpuf
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