While advising Nigerians to leverage the size of the population to help the nation overcome its challenges, she advised political, ethnic and religious leaders to show temperance in their conduct and utterances.
Kingibe, who represents the Federal Capital Territory on the platform of the Labour Party, said these in a statement issued in Abuja.
According to her, only a few nations could withstand the kinds of pressures, crises and challenges Nigeria had faced since 1960 and still remained as one corporate, indivisible entity.
She said, “Nigerians should count their blessings on the occasion of this national day of celebration. Whatever the situation is presently, it could be worse. But God in His mercy, had continued to hold us together. It must be for a reason that we are still standing despite the seeming enervating challenges.
“Our strength has been our resilience and collective resolve to see our ethnic and religious diversity as building blocks for national unity and cohesion, rather than drawbacks.
“Our population has been our strength. In addition to providing the needed manpower for national development, it has provided the added advantage of making us a regional and continental power.”
She further advised that Nigerians should use their population to their advantage in comparison to China and India; the world’s most populous nations.
Kingigbe also advised the nation’s leaders to portray good moral standards.
“Given our size and the plenitude of natural resources God has blessed us with, we must, like China and India, two nations with populations far outstripping ours, now turn our numbers to our advantage. God has positioned us to play a leading role on the African continent; we must rise to the occasion but we cannot do so without rising to our full height, or else we’ll be nothing but a giant on spindly legs
“Whatever we do as leaders, reflects on our youth and children. As leaders, we must lead by example. We must point the way forward to moral rectitude and civilised conduct, else we will be sowing the seeds of the destruction of our society.”
Kingibe said that in the course of the last six decades, the country has had challenges that would have splintered or perhaps even obliterated other nations.
“Indeed, we are witnesses to the fact that many nations that thrived at the turn of the 20th century have disappeared off the map of the world to be replaced by small and less cohesive entities. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are two prime examples. In the 20th century, nations across the globe experienced internal tremors and distortions with many of them unable to remain corporate entities.
“Even now in this century, many totters are on the brink of extinction. Nigeria, by contrast, has stoically weathered the storms of adversity and remains determined to overcome its many challenges. We have consistently defeated the centrifugal forces and elements, which have, again and again, sought to drive a wedge between our peoples”, she said.
