True progress comes not from the size of a community or country but from unity among the people, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has asserted.
Dogara said in Adamawa State on Saturday that ethnicity and religion are two lines along which people could be divided but which can happily be overcome.
Speaking as Father of the Day at a cultural event hosted in Yola by the Bwatiye people of Adamawa State, Dogara said, “Strength is unity, not numbers. The true strength of Bwatiye people lies in their unity.”;
Dogara stressed during the Bwatiye 2025 International Cultural Festival and Development Foundation Fundraising event held at the Mahmud Ribadu Square, Yola, that Nigeria itself would advance only by leaning on the strength of unity.
“If Nigeria will make true progress, it won’t be because we are big but because we are united. Let’s consolidate our greatness on things that are common to us, which fortunately are more than the things that divide us,”; he said.
Making the point that religion and ethnicity need not be divisive as neither of them preaches division, Dogara advised Nigerians to let common humanity bind them.
The Bwatiye cultural festival which entered its third and final day on Saturday, attracted people of the Bwatiye nation world wide from across Adamawa State and from Camaroon, Gabon, and central Africa.
The aim of the cultural event, according to the organisers, is to bring sons and daughters of Bwatiye people together, build on their unity and seek to achieve common good.
The Bwatiye people refer collecrively to two ethnic groups: the Bachama and Bata, found mostly in Numan, Demsa, Girei, Fufore and Lamurde local government areas of Adamawa State and in some parts of the Cameroon Republic.
The Bwatiye raised millions of Naira during their festival and fund raising event for a unity school that they propose to build.
