Stuart Symington, United State ambassador to Nigeria, has charged Nigerians to collectively join forces to build a more prosperous country.
Speaking during an event to commemorate America’s 243rd independence, Wednesday, Symington noted that the task of making the country great was a collective action of the leaders and the citizenry.
According to him, “A great asset of Nigeria is for all those who lead and all the subjects they represent, to come together to make this nation one nation bound in freedom with peace and unity and in this process, you can count on the US for we believe in your ideas and we profoundly believe in you.”
Symington, however, charged the federal government to increase access to education for more girls and women across the country, stressing that the empowering of women and girls population was crucial for the future of the country and its unborn generation.
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“The education and empowerment of every girl and every woman is vital so that Nigeria sees her future with two eyes and can grab it with two arms and not one,” he said.
Symington further said the heterogeneous nature of the country was a blessing, stressing that the US had been trying to achieve such society since it got independence.
According to him, “Nigeria is not just a country. Nigeria is not just a nation, and Nigeria was not just drawn on a map to bind first as a colony and later as free women and men. This country, Nigeria, is an idea, an idea very familiar to every American,” he said.
“It is an idea that people who speak 497 different languages that are twice as many languages that are spoken on any given day in the United Nations, 497 different tongues coming together, Nigeria is the idea.
“This, by the way, for 243 years, it has been the dream of the United States to take people separated and divided in colonies with different rulers and bring them together as a nation with one governor. The Nigerian idea is an idea that is absolutely truly shared by the US.
“Not that one people with one language, or one people with one faith, or one people of one colour or who come from one place but that all people of all languages can truly be bound in freedom and the sum of those parts can be much more than any one member could ever be,” Symington added.
