Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido has said that Nigerians should watch the way they discuss President Umaru Yar’Adua’s health because they could be harming the country by a casual approach to it.

“The President is our symbolism as a nation and the health or ill-health of the occupant should not be the subject of careless speculations and diversionary political debates”, Lamido told members of the Nigerian Olympic Committee attending their AGM at Dutse and who paid him a courtesy call at the Government House Tuesday.

'When we discuss him, it should be done in a way that people outside watching us would have no alternative than appreciate the collective determination of Nigerians to be together even under very difficult times,' the governor said, adding that the impact on the younger Nigerians of what people say and how they say it should be considered. According to Lamido, just like the calf, younger Nigerians are watching how the elders are chewing the political cord. Therefore, the way we speak have serious impact. Younger people would be learning wrong precepts.

Nigeria, he said, is in many international fora as a sovereign country and it is important that Nigerians have clear notion of who they are collectively. “We are beyond being seen as people who do not mind putting down the country either out of ignorance of implications of what we are saying or doing or in mindless and inordinate pursuit of personal interests”.

For him, the way the debate is going about the ill-health or otherwise of the President is being reduced to entertainment which Lamido said suggested that we are yet to have national minimum standards or benchmarks about the hard issues of state power, suggesting that these hard issues should be defined so that there would be no going below appreciation of national integrity whenever we comment on them.

Asking Nigerians to stop indulging in self-pity by perpetually comparing Nigeria with other countries without asking if, individually as members of the elite, they have given their best in terms of personal conduct and the kind of personal sacrifices required for rapid transformation, Governor Lamido stated that whichever way it goes, it is Nigerians who can make Nigeria right because “we cannot import people from outside to put this place right”

Turning directly to the Olympic Committee team led by the Minister for Sports, Engineer Sani Ndanusa, Lamido said achievements in sports is part of making Nigeria right. He, therefore, urged the team to leave the Dutse AGM as a totally united family.

While commending their choice of Jigawa for the AGM, saying that being in Jigawa would enable theto appreciate what life is like for the commoners and folks outsid m e the big Nigerian capitals, he implored them to feel free to inhale the fresh air away from the congestion and pollution of Lagos or Abuja because “the rocks, mountains, trees and grasses here in Jigawa would purify you”, he assured the members.

Speaking for the team, Engineer Abu Gumel who is also the President of Nigerian Olympic Committee told Lamido that Nigerians should disregard press reports about discord in the Committee because they were overblown and misleading.