Nation building requires sacrifices – Atiku

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said nation building requires sacrifices of some sectional interest for the overall interest of the country and all segments.
Abubakar made this known in a paper he presented at the late General Usman Katsina memorial conference in Kaduna on Saturday.
The theme was: “Restructuring Nigeria for Greater National Integration and Democratic Stability.”
Abubakar said as a country, the founding fathers have mightily struggled to live up to this ideal, but integration and the survival of our democracy is still a work in progress.
He said: “The cost to us has been enormous, we even fought a civil war to forcibly keep the country together.”
Abubakar said since the various amalgamations, different segments expressed feelings of marginalisation, of being shortchanged, dominated, oppressed, threatened or even targeted for elimination.
He added that sometimes the country implement contradictory policies that weaken national integration and cited the requirement of state and local government of origin rather than residency for access to government services and jobs as example.
He said: “That alone restricts people mobility and infuses in them a sense of rejection by the very country that wants them to feel welcome and proud.
“Personally, I believe in one strong and united Nigeria, I believe that we are stronger, united and that together our potentials are enormous. I believe that our country’s unity is worth sacrificing for.”
Abubakar said government revenues were based on taxation and that infrastructure for economic development was built on taxation.
He said: “Rents on natural resource extraction, including oil rents, are not sustainable sources of revenues for government.
“And whenever they are dominant for a nation they tend to distort the economy, discourage productivity and encourage rent-seeking activities and dependency.”
Abubakar called for an honest reappraisal of the motives and principles behind existing solutions to the country’s national integration challenges to determine their potency and efficacy under the country”s current circumstances
He said: “Such an appraisal should not be shaped by which political party we belong to or any expected political benefits to individual.
“It can be done with the help of a body of independent experts from this part of the country or even from outside the country.”
The former Vice President said the appraisal should focus on devolution and autonomy for the federating units, less interference of the centre on local matters.
The others are local government administration, including local policing, central governments that depend on taxation of resource extraction and other economic activities rather than rents for the operation.
Abubakar said national integration was achievable in the country, adding: “There are vital intangibles such as values, ideology and a sense of investment in the nation that help in fostering a sense of national integration.
“It is one thing that Nigeria must remain a united nation. It is quite another thing to forge that sense of nationhood without which you can never have national integration.
He said for a country to forge into nationhood, it requires three critical things, which included a sense of something beneficial that the nation does for a people that they can feel cannot get else where to the same vital degree.
The people’s perception of fairness and equity in the way and manner they are treated and arising from these, a sense of pride in the nation and its leadership by most
segments of the population.
He said all three were linked to government performance, integrity of the leadership and honesty of purpose, all evident to the citizenry.