Meanwhile, national planning has been haphazard and people unfriendly. For most of our 54 years and for all of the past fifteen, honest men have been given scant opportunity to lead Nigeria. We have wandered from the path of economic empowerment for our youth and the mass of our people. Nigeria has become adept at creating economic refugees, brain-drain migrants, decimated institutions and the building of a venal ”Wallet Economy” benefiting only a handful. As if this cynically induced poverty is not sufficient hardship, this government compounds the public burden by sowing discord with the alacrity that a wise government would plant charity and accord. Rather than promote religious tolerance and harmonious living, this Government believes its electoral chances are enhanced by promoting ethnicity, internal divisions, religious suspicion and scapegoating. Successful nations are not built this way. Have we not learned the lesson that we paid the high price of civil war to learn.

We emerged from painful civil war with the singular objective of establishing an equitable, tolerant society. We sought to unite all into one people with a sense of one nation. We would turn our diversity into one of greatest assets. Decades later, it seems the memory of that period has faded. Political figures of dubious quality dabble with forces they may not truly comprehend and have no chance of ultimately controlling. This supposedly democratic government struts the stage, using our diversity to further divide us. An asset is turned into a wedge separating friend from friend, neighbor from neighbor.

But I know that our diversity is a unique strength we can use to erase hunger, banish poverty, limit civil strife, build tolerance and enrich our civic education and awareness by learning so much from each other.

While Nigeria’s current leaders failed to build upon the foundation provided them, there are some rays of hope. On this day, I commend the people of Lagos and other progressive states in the southwest and throughout Nigeria. You have tried your best to keep faith with the best practices and policies of those who founded this nation. Against strong odds and the strong-arm of a reactionary federal government, you have improved the foundation then built upon it. If only what you have done could be replicated by the federal government.