Mr. Abubakar asks state governors to take full responsibility in managing the divergent voices and frustrations within their states.

A former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, has warned that Nigeria could disintegrate,

If the violence and other security challenges currently witnessed in many parts of the country are not curtailed.

Mr Abubakar spoke to journalists on Wednesday at his home in Minna, the Niger State capital.

His admonition is coming a few days after some persons were killed in a market in Oyo State during a clash.

The reporters reported how several people reportedly died in a clash in a conflict between Hausa and Yoruba groups in the state.

The crisis was triggered by an alleged stabbing of a Yoruba cobbler by a Hausa cart pusher in Shasha market, Ibadan.

Governors of Bauchi and Benue states last week also engaged in tense verbal exchange over arms bearing by Fulani herdsmen.

While Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State justified arms bearing by the herdsmen, his Benue counterpart, Samuel Ortom, condemned his statement.

The Nigerian Governors Forum had, however, said the Shasha crisis was not ethnic in nature.

‘Point of no return’

Vanguard newspaper quoted Mr Abubakar, a retired general, as saying that the recent spread of violence across the country, if not carefully handled, might lead Nigeria to a point of no return.