The governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda, has enjoined Nigerians to embrace the national conference, saying that everything humanly and administratively possible must be done in order to keep Nigeria as one indivisible entity.
He noted that those calling for a broken Nigeria are not patriotic citizens.
Yuguda stated this while addressing the North-East session of the proposed national dialogue in Bauchi.
To him, the best thing anyone can do is to use the diversity of the country for better nationhood rather than seek for its division or shredding it into segments, saying "the issues of ethno- religious sentiments must be done away with."
The governor, who agreed that people might have different reasons of disagreement, such should not in any way lead to secession. He pointed out that there is strength in the diversity of the country because, according to him, "God made us all Nigerians first and then gave us different languages, cultures, traditions and above all religions."
His words: "We must therefore tolerate one another in order to move on. We must learn to understand one another so that we can make positive progress. We must allow our senses of reasoning and judgement to lead us aright because we don't have any other place to call a country if not Nigeria.
"Today, capital has run away from us because we are not united in purpose. Today, we have poverty because we are not ready to accommodate each other's opinion on how to make capital stay around us. We must find a way to make our economy develop."