Ignore secessionists, they’ll flee country when crisis erupts, Lai warns citizens

THE Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has urged Nigerians to put the patroitism above ethnic and other primordial sentiments threatening to tear apart the country.

The minister said balkanisation of the country along ethnic lines is not the solution to the myriad problems currently plaguing it.
He stressed that those stoking the embers of secession are so cowardly that they would be the first set of people to flee the country if a crisis breaks out.

The minister urged patrotic citizens to ignore secessionist views from those who have turned themselves into rabble-rousers as the federal government is working to prevent all divisive tendencies.

Mohammed spoke today during a radio programme on Bond FM.

“Those who support separation and secession will be the first to run away when any problem starts,” he said.

“We should not listen to them as many of them have about four passports of other countries.”

The minister said the unity of Nigeria is more important than all the issues threatening its continued existence.

He said ethnic clashes are not new in the country and added that “you don’t cure headache by beheading the patient”.

Mohammed said: “That we have ethnicity issues is not new. IPOB, Boko Haram and farmer-herders clashes are not new; all we must do is to look for the way forward.

“We are aware of them, the government is working. Secession is not the way out of our challenges. You don’t cure headache by beheading the patient.

“The things that unite us in Nigeria are more than what separate us.”

The minister’s comments on secession are coming on the heels of a rally organised by Ilana Oódua, a group of Yoruba self-determination activists who are seeking to secede.

The rally took place on Saturday in Ibadan, Oyo state capital amid heavy presence of policemen and other stuff operatives