Osun State governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, at the weekend, expressed the fear that the nation was tilting towards disintegration, contending that critical measures must be explored by the Federal Government to salvage the nation in the face of daunting challenges threatening its corporate entity.
He made this known in Osogbo at a dinner his administration organised in honour of the newly elected President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Mr Femi Adesina, and other executive members of the association.
Aregbesola, who attributed his fears to protracted unrests and other insecurity problems plaguing the country, said unless the Federal Government urgently took some concrete steps, the nation might collapse.
According to him, “anyone with the interest of the country at heart would certainly know that it (Nigeria) is at present closer to failure than success as a nation,” averring that rather than addressing the fundamental causes of the crisis, the Federal Government was only scratching them on the surface.
“I am particularly worried about the fate of this nation today. Nigeria is very close to being a failed state than being successful. A nation can only remain indivisible and hold itself together when people charged with the responsibilities refuse to shirk in the dispensation of such responsibilities,” Aregbesola said.
He added that the “crises manifest in different ways, but the real causes of the nation’s abnormalities have not been addressed. It is not enough to tag the insurgency in the South as militancy or youth unrest and the one in the North as a religious crisis or Islamic fundamentalism, rather the utmost thing needed is solutions to all these unrests.”
Aregbesola, however, charged the media to practise developmental journalism, stressing that media managers should stimulate the people for effective civic responsibilities that would change their attitudes.
In his remark earlier, President of the Guild, Mr Adesina, noted that the good work the governor was doing was currently manifesting across the state.
He said the Guild of Editors and the entire media would always support and cooperate with a government that stands for the people like that of Aregbesola.
