President Muhammadu Buhari has described Boko Haram insurgents as both ignorance of the Islamic religion under which they claim to be killing and maiming innocent people and cowards for now resorting to attacking soft targets.

The President, who spoke today, Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal, at a Panel of Heads of State at the 3^rd Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa, stressed that the days of the insurgents are now numbered as they would soon be wiped out of existence.

“I think Boko Haram shot themselves in the foot when they gave their ideology a religious connotation by killing children in their schools, people in the mosques and churches and shouting Allahu Akbar.

“This is a major contradiction as no religion advocates hurting the innocent. You can’t kill people and say Allahu Akbar. You either do not know what you are saying or you don’t believe it,” President Buhari said.

“Those who live in the North East know that Boko Haram is no longer holding a single territory in the 774 LGAs in Nigeria. But they have a system of using IEDs and they indoctrinate mostly teenage girls and send them to soft targets to churches, mosques and market places. That too is becoming very rear.

President Buhari highlighted the gains of the cooperation among the Lake Chad Basin Commission countries comprising Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin Republic and Nigeria, saying that Boko Haram is no longer holding any territory or Local Government Area (LGA) in Nigeria.

“About a month ago, I spoke with the President of Chad and I was pleased that a number of Chadians and Nigerians that were Boko Haram members are surrendering to him en-masse. The good news I have is that the end of the raining season has come in the North eastern region of Nigeria.

“Members of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) are in their respective positions and at an agreed time they will move simultaneously and spontaneously for us to see the end of Boko Haram. We are now operating in the Sambisa Forest and as far as Boko Haram is concerned in the Lake Chad Basin area, I think they are done for,’’ the President declared.

Buhari insisted that Nigeria is capable of surmounting its security challenges, even as he appealed to the international community to focus more attention on addressing piracy in the Gulf of Guinea and unemployment in Nigeria.

“In the southern part of the country, stolen Nigerian crude is being illegally transported through the Gulf of Guinea and installations offshore are being subverted. We also have the problem of unemployment in Nigeria. With a population of 180 million people of which 65 per cent are under the age of 35, young Nigerians are looking for any kind of job to survive.

“We are addressing the situation (unemployment) by turning to agriculture and solid minerals because we are lucky to be blessed with arable land, water and resources,” the President noted. [myad]

The Oyo State Government has dismissed 662 workers from the state civil and public service for forged West Africa Secondary School Certificates. The state also discovered about 2,021 ghost workers and pensioners and expunged from its payroll.
The state Head of Service, Soji Eniade, made these disclosures during the press briefing about the decisions of the State Executive Council meeting at the Governor’s Office, Ibadan.
Eniade said that the ongoing reform in the state civil and public service revealed that about 684 workers were not found at their duty posts during the last Physical Verification Exercise carried out in the state recently.
The Head of Service said that the state government is restructuring the state civil and public service by ascertaining the quality and quantity of the workforce, stressing that the Bank Verification Number used to determine the accurate size of the workforce and pensioners exposed that there were 1,432 fictitious state pensioners’ names, 84 fictitious local government pensioners and 505 fictitious workers in the state civil and public service, amounting to 2,021.
Eniade added that the state government discovered that 662 personnel on its payroll were in possession of forged WASSCE certificates discovered during the certificate verification handled by Messrs. Captain Consulting, highlighting that 305 of the personnel were from the local government, 152 from ministries, 149 from Teaching Service Commission, 28 from parastatals and two from the State Universal Basic Education Board.
Eniade pointed out that out of the 670 workers that were discovered to have submitted forged certificates, eight out of them resubmitted their WASSCE certificates for re-verification, while the remaining 662 had been summarily dismissed and the onus is now on them to prove that the WASSCE certificates in their possession are original.
The Head of Service said that the exercise is a continuous one as the consultant is expected to extend the verification to higher institutions certificates submitted by the state civil and public servants and consequently urged the workers who are still in the service to voluntarily resign as the government will deal with them within the ambit of the law.
He emphasized that the action of the government is not meant to witch-hunt anybody, saying that what it is doing is a standard periodic self-check, which standard practice throughout the world is where quality service delivery is expected.
“I am an advocate of some of the Private Sector practices to be injected into the public and civil service in the state. The level of decadence in the system is embarrassing and this cannot continue.
“What the government is doing is called self-check. There is financial check, institutional check, quality check et al.
“Any organization or even individual that wants to progress must engage in self-check as standard practice.
“The government engaged the services of a consultant and this is the same consultant used by the previous administration.
“We do not want any interference and that is why we have engaged a third party to weed out the bad ones amongst us all.
“In 2013, workers with fake certificates were dismissed and it is a continuous process, which the government will see to the end.
“We are using the exercise to determine the quality and the quantity, right size of the workforce for efficiency, prompt salary payment and service delivery to restore the lost glory of the public and civil service.
“Initially, we had a total of 670 and eight out of them have represented their certificates.
“We will give them the opportunity of re-verification.
“We believe in the saying that he who comes to equity, must come with clean hands.
“Also, we have started issuing queries to the personnel that prepared the payrolls where fictitious names were discovered.
“We want them to tell us where they generated the names and explain why disciplinary actions should not be taken against them.”
Eniade said that after the completion of the exercise, areas that needed to be fortified will be fortified, redistribution will be done as well as retraining to properly position the state workforce for present and future challenges. [myad]

President Muhammadu Buhari has made it clear that he is very passionate about Nigeria and appealed to the elites to change their corruptive ways and join him to run a country different from what it used to be.

Speaking at a meeting with a group of Nigerians in Diaspora, on the margins of the 3^rd Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa on Tuesday in Dakar, President Buhari said: “Nigerians are known for their competitiveness and I am very passionate about Nigeria. I will continue to preach good neighbourliness and work hard to improve the numerous human and material resources in the country.”

The President called on the Nigerian elite to stop insisting that things should be done the ‘old way’ which impoverished the nation.

“This administration is pleased we won the election, we are pleased Nigerians are cooperating with us. But the problems are so enormous that we need the cooperation of Nigerians, particularly the elite.

“They (the elite) should reflect on the condition of the country, and stop making expensive demands because things cannot be done the old way.”

He insisted that his government is on the right track to improve the image of the country by entrenching accountability and probity in governance.
President Buhari told 11-man Nigerian delegation of association leaders resident in Senegal and Cote D’ Ivoire, that the last 16 years of poor handling of the nation’s resources and infrastructure have continued to impact negatively on the country.

Speaking on the welfare of Nigerians in the Diaspora, President Buhari assured them that the Federal Government will continue to promote good neighbourliness and improve the negative perception about Nigerians abroad.

The President of the Nigerian community, Cote D’ Ivoire, Alhaji Adebayo Yahaya, commended the President for his bold fight against corruption, saying:  “Nigerians are praying for your success, don’t relent, do not lose hope, the almighty God is behind you.”

Also speaking, the President of the Nigerian community, Senegal, Mr. Osas Edigin, told the President that Nigerians in the country have enjoyed excellent relationship with their hosts. [myad]