Acting President attends Armed Forces Command and Staff College graduation ceremony

He said "We can build a new nation; a new nation built on trust, consensus and love for one another and love for our country is possible. A nation where the rulers do not steal the commonwealth, where every Nigerian is safe to live and work, where the State takes responsibility for the security of each and every Nigerian, where the State knows every Nigerian by name and can find and locate each one of us.”

Osinbajo also accused the elite of sponsoring groups who promote hate through their various utterances.

He said "I would like to emphasize the fact that this was essentially an elite phenomenon, unity and disunity are promoted by the elite which the vast majority of the Nigerian people are only later conscripted."

"while we must remain irrevocably committed to freedom of expression and the tenets of a free press, we must draw the line between freedom that conduces to healthy democracy and that which threatens and endangers the entire democratic enterprise . It is an important balance, that we must strike. Failure in any way will be tragic,” he added.

He also observed that the problem is exacerbated by the influence of the internet and hate media emphasizing that "today a great deal of the threats facing Nigeria are being nurtured and cultivated in the vast spaces of the Internet. The rumblings of secession, the dangerous quit ultimatums to ethnic groups, the radio stations and blogs that spew divisive speech and exploit our fault lines; all of these are now to be found online."

The Acting President also noted that though the days of military rule are now behind the nation, and charged the military, its officers and men to devote resources and talent to these new battlefields, including the internet, "where mindless verdicts on the continued unity and existence of Nigeria are daily being delivered."

Adding that "the battle is not just to defeat the terrorists, the greater battle is to defeat the ideology and mindset that feeds the madness and to cut off its oxygen, money and publicity."

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Prof Osinbajo however expressed optimism stating that "the truth is that our nation and national unity is worth preserving and protecting. We are the preeminent power in Africa today in terms of population, size of our markets , natural resources and economy. We are a factor in the geopolitics of the world, no one can ignore a nation state that is home to one in every four black persons. Smaller is weaker not stronger today."

He charged the nation to rise above unproductive ethnic and religious sentiments and advised that "we must develop the emotional intelligence required to cope and adapt in a swiftly and constantly changing world. We must adopt a global mindset, that seeks to learn from the experiences of other countries, far and near, so that we do not waste valuable time repeating mistakes that we should have learned from and learned to avoid".

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recently commended Acting President Osinbajo for dousing the tension in the country that was brought about by the quit notice issued to Igbos living in the North.