The minister called for ethnic and religious solidarity among the people of the North to promote harmony, unity and peace, and urged them to live peacefully among the different ethnic and religious groups a statement issued by his spokesman, Joseph Mutah said.
Maku was speaking in Wakama, Nasarawa State at an occasion to celebrate Christmas.
“We are united in this community. We believe that God is one. There is no one God for Christians and another one for Muslims; only one God who created all the religions and God has instructed us to love each other not to hate because of religion; not to hate because of ethnic differences,” he said.
The minister said the north must and be their brother’s keeper, saying we “not allow what is going on in some parts of the north to continue because in the end it is northern Nigeria that is being destroyed by our own children.”
He lamented that huge sums of money that were supposed to go into development programmes in the north are now being used to contain the security situation in the region.
The minister also urged all religious and community leaders, traditional rulers, politicians and the elite to campaign for peace in the north to ensure that peace prevails.
Maku also said that he has observed that as the 2015 general elections draw nearer, some politicians in the north are making unguarded statements capable of inciting their supporters to violence.
Mr. Maku said the present administration was doing much to develop the country particularly in the north. He noted that some projects that were planned since the First Republic are only being actualised under the Goodluck Jonathan administration including the dredging of the River Niger, which is aimed at opening the north to inland water transportation, rehabilitation of the railways from Lagos to Kano, construction of standard gauge rail-line from Abuja to Kaduna, and the construction of Almajiri schools.
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