‘Nigeria is lucky to have remained together despite challenges – Sen Ndoma Egba

From Ene Asuquo, Calabar 

The leader of the 7th Senate, Senator victor Ndoma Egba has said that it is a miracle that with all the ups and downs the country had gone through, she still remain an entity.

Egba made the assertion while speaking on the Country’s 65 years of independence as a nation, when the executives of the Cross River State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) paid him a courtesy visit at his residence in Calabar, weekend.

“65 years in the life of a human being is a very long time because at 65 one should be close to being a grandparent.“But for a nation, 65 years is a very short time in the life of that nation”. 

Egba who is the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Federal University of Ado-Ekiti in Ekiti State, said even as short as the time is, the country has had these, heavily packed experiences.

“So it’s a miracle that we are still seen as a nation. It’s a major achievement that in spite of these, contradictory experiences, we are still one nation”.

The senator said that there is no sane Nigerian today that would advocate for a breakup of Nigeria” which is a major achievement in spite of our challenges,he maintained. 

The former leader said that we would have wished to be miles ahead of where we are now, but agreed that the country has had a number of missed turns and missed opportunities, which was not peculiar to Nigeria alone, that others have had theirs also.

He maintained that  Nation building is not an overnight thing, according to him, “Nation building never ends”. It’s an endless journey. Stressing that there is no destination that we see a milestone to say we have arrived at our  destination of development.

“There is no destination called democracy or fully built up nation. So my attitude is, we must continue moving forward. 

“We just have to keep moving forward in spite of the problems, in spite of ourselves. we must Just keep moving forward. Where we are is like a marriage”, he said 

“So it is that commitment to keep Nigeria one that is keeping us together and there’s nobody no serious person who wants Nigeria to break up. 

“So I think that at 65 years we may not have achieved it all but we also have made progress” he stressed.