President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday urged Nigerians to team up with his administration in battling the security crisis facing the country by exposing sponsors of insecurity.
The president, in a message to mark the Eid-el-Kabir, also stressed the need for Muslims to live in harmony with Nigerians of other faiths while praying for the progress of the country.
Also in their Sallah messages, the Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan; the Speaker of House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila; the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), called on Nigerians to pray for peace, unity and development of the country.
Buhari, in the Sallah message by his spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, said: “Let us expose undesirable elements among us who are creating security problems for the country.
“I urge all Muslims to continue to live in peace and harmony with their fellow Nigerians of other faiths in the spirit of peaceful coexistence. Let us pray for the progress of Nigeria at all times.”
Buhari reiterated the determination of his administration to create a just, harmonious and prosperous country in which the safety of lives and property is assured.
He added that the current insecurity bedeviling the country has produced severe and adverse effects on agriculture because farmers are prevented from accessing their farms by bandits and terrorists.
He, however, reassured Nigerians that his administration is taking measures to address the security challenges.
“We have started taking delivery of fighter aircraft and other necessary military equipment and hardware to improve the capacity of our security forces to confront terrorism and banditry,” he stated.
The president also reflected on current challenges facing the country, saying that “COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economies of all countries, including Nigeria, in addition to the fact that floods have caused large scale destruction to agricultural farmlands, thereby impacting negatively on our efforts to boost local production in line with our policy to drastically reduce food importation.”
This, he explained, has led to food inflation, which the government is working hard to address.
He added: “No government in our recent history has invested as heavily as we are doing to promote local production of about 20 other commodities, through the provision of loans and several other forms of support to our farmers.
“Apart from the destruction caused to rice farms by floods, middlemen have also taken advantage of the local rice production to exploit fellow Nigerians, thereby undermining our goal of supporting local food production at affordable prices.”
Buhari said his government was working hard on measures to bring relief to average Nigerians.
He said: “As an elected president who enjoys the goodwill of the ordinary people that gave us their mandate, let me assure you that we are continuing with measures to bring relief to Nigerians, including making fertilizer available at affordable prices to our farmers.”
On the significance of the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, the president appealed to Muslims to demonstrate the good virtues of Islam through personal examples and practices.
He stated that taking advantage of the celebration to exploit fellow citizens through outrageous prices of food and rams is inconsistent with tenets of Islam.
Buhari said: “As practicing believers, we shouldn’t seek obscene profits by making life difficult and miserable for others. We should not seek happiness at the expense of others. Remember that Islam is a religion of charity that urges us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves,”ThisDay reports.
