My dear countrymen and women, today, we celebrate the tenth anniversary of our resumption of sovereignty and independence. We celebrate this solemn occasion in unity and peace.
For this, we offer a special prayer of gratitude to God. The memory of our recent agony is fresh. During the ten years of our nationhood, our country has been assailed by many crises culminating in the thirty-month civil war, which ended in January this year.
I shall first speak about the National Development Plan. The five national objectives on which the plan is based are to make Nigeria;
1. A united, strong, and self-reliant nation,
2. A great and dynamic economy
3. A just an egalitarian society
4. A land of full and equal opportunities for all its citizens, and
5. A free and democratic society.
There is no doubt in my mind that the experiences we have been through in the past few years would confirm us all in the wisdom of maintaining a federal constitution. In African and world affairs, Nigeria cannot be isolationist, even if it's so desired. The African states rightly saw in the unity of Nigeria an essential condition for African unity.
Moreover, peoples of African descent throughout the world see in a strong Nigeria a banner of hope and an instrument for achieving self-respect for the black man so long degraded everywhere. Outside the African continent, we shall work more energetically with all developing countries to sustain the independence of small countries and to remove the obstacles to more rapid development placed before us by the economic domination and the trading practices of the richer countries.