Mark: Nigeria must remain one

Written by Daily Trust Monday, 06 February 2012

Senate President David Mark yesterday said he would defend to the death the unity of Nigeria and that the National Assembly would also firmly protect the corporate existence of the country.

Mark spoke against the backdrop of recent religious and sectional tensions, which led to a North-South exodus not witnessed for a long time.

“This is no time to sit on the fence and engage in the blame game. The situation has degenerated to an intolerable level leading to the mass movement of our people from one end of the country to the order. We must as a people rise up and halt this,” he said in a goodwill message to Muslims on the commemoration of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

“Government at all levels and the security operatives must restore hope and peace that would engender confidence in our people to stop this drift. We have toiled over the years to keep Nigeria one. We cannot afford to slip now”.

The recent wave of Boko Haram-linked attacks in the North ignited movement of people of Igbo ethnic origin to their Southeast homeland while northerners in parts of the South also fled from reprisals.

Also, debates are on in the media regarding whether the country should remain united.

A statement in Abuja yesterday by Mark’s spokesman Paul Mumeh quoted the Senate president as saying that Nigeria must remain united and that “he (Mark) would defend with the last drop of his blood anything to the contrary.”

“(The) Senate and indeed the National Assembly will stand firmly and vote for the unity and continued corporate existence of Nigeria no matter the odds or challenges of the recent time,” the statement said.

Mark said “the current security challenge which has truly tasked and threatened the nation must be decisively confronted.”

The Senate president therefore urged Muslims and Christians to pray for the peace and unity of the nation, “in order to put our detractors to shame.”

Mark’s statement on the unity of the country came just over a week after former president Ibrahim Babangida said he would be ready to fight another war to defend the oneness of Nigeria.

Babangida, who spoke as chairman of the occasion at the Daily Trust Annual Dialogue in Abuja on January 26, said: “Nobody will talk to me about secession or breaking away. If you do, I would always say yes, get my tailor to take my measurement, get on my khaki and go back to fight a war to keep this country together even at71.”

In his Maulud message yesterday, Mark spoke also on the reigning controversy over petrol subsidy, saying the Federal Government demonstrated the political will to implement the market oriented reforms.

He said government’s subsidy re-investment programme SURE would reverse the nation’s “long hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure and poor macro-economic management.”

The statement quoted Mark as saying “the challenge at the moment is to diversify the economy away from its overdependence on the capital intensive oil sector which provides 95 per cent of our foreign exchange earnings and about 80 per cent of budgetary revenues.”

Mark said the National Assembly would scrutinise the 2012 budget “so that we can pass an implementable budget and avoid the annual rhetoric of inability to implement.”

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