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The former Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, now the Minister of Interior,  has said Nigeria will outlive all of her citizens, urging the citizens to live within the mundus operatic of the country.

The minister shared and stated this in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital at his investiture as Grand Patron of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), South-West zone, where the body also gave him an Award of Excellence in Leadership. He spoke and received the award as himself rather than as a Minister of Interior.

He said: “Solution to our differences and problems arising from disunity will be found only in a conscious effort by all of us to make fundamentally ethical every moment of our Lives.”

“Besides, those who take the precipitate action of resorting to armed conflict often plunged their land and people to ruin from which there may not be an exit option”.

“Nations are often locked in civil wars of mutually assured destruction in which peradventure one side wins, the victory will turn to ashes because the cost of victory is the loss of everything that was fought for.”

“Wars can also be so devastating that when it ends, the people are set back by not less than a hundred years. Worse still, as it is well established in the revolutionary literature, revolution often consume her own children. Those who engineered popular uprising may be consumed by it.”

“From all studies I am familiar with, welding together a heterogenous people with disparate cultural and historical background is a long and tortuous process that can suffer colossal reversal at any time, irrespective of the progress already made, if the actors are not careful,” he famous.

“Even in affluent and seemingly secure Europe there was sustained separatist agitation in France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Cyprus, Finland, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Lithuania and just about all around the continent. In spite of the failed referendum for the independence of Scotland, the decision for separation from Britain has not abated’.

“It is therefore anathema for me to accept ethnicity as a basis for the development of space and people. It is a fact of history that every division fostered by sectionalism will not stop until the irreducible minimum division is reached.”

“The greatest method to go is to cast off the mindset at the moment at play that Nigeria is a lie and subsequently have to be balkanized. We are actually a various nation. But the energy in our range is immeasurable if solely we’d unite in its recognition.

Nigeria’s future and function are very clear and they’re divine.”

“The argument that the current political configuration holds down the country may be admissible to a large extent and we need to adjust our structure, both politically and economically.”

“With the challenges we face in Nigeria today, I see an opportunity for us not to break up or break down but to break open! Open up to ourselves in truth so that we may appreciate each other, understand each other, honour each other and live together in peace and prosperity.”

He ended by “Nigerians must live the ethos of honouring their individual and collective consciences. Of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that rebuilding our homes and communities is an urgent and most compelling duty if our nationhood would be sustained. That is the only way we can avoid building a society in which extreme behaviours thrive and consequently wreak havoc on our unity, peace and progress”.