Prepare For Period When There’ll Be No Government Jobs, Buhari Tells Youths
President Muhammadu Buhari has called on the youths in the country, especially students in universities and other tertiary institutions, to prepare themselves for the period when government jobs would no longer be available to absolve them.
“We are reaching a time where you don’t have to get education and start looking for government jobs. What happens when government job is not there?”
President Buhari, who received members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Daura, Katsina State, at his country home, today, July 9, asked the youths to get educated and equip themselves for bigger opportunities, provided by technology.
He told the youth Corps to keep expanding their views on life and opportunities, and avoid the limitations of culture, ethnicity and religion.
He asked them to explore technology to network, even beyond borders, and to ensure personal development and a more competitive means of livelihood.
He further advised the youths to look beyond culture, ethnicity and religion in relating with one another, even as he asked them to engage in more travels, mingling, tolerance and negotiations to appreciate the rich diversity of the country.
According to Buhari, regular interface and broader vision of Nigeria as a whole will improve relationships, especially among the youths.
The President commended the former Head of State, retired General Yakubu Gowon for establishing NYSC, saying: “every time I meet former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, I always thank him for the NYSC, which helps people to move all over Nigeria.
“Before the NYSC, there were people who had never moved out of their locality.”
The President said that the scheme broadened the horizon for many over the years, and reduced the tensions and misunderstandings that exist between strangers.
“When I joined the army, I was posted to Abeokuta and then Lagos. And I have travelled all over Nigeria.”
Speaking, the Corps Liaison Officer (CLO), Douglas Damina, thanked the President for encouraging sustenance of the NYSC, and promoting youth inclusiveness and empowerment.
“Mr. President, we pray that the Almighty God will accept your prayers and remember your sacrifices for the nation.”
Damina told the President that the Corps members had achieved a lot in community development, renovating three motor boreholes, training 350 youths in various skills, and encouraging proper hygiene, especially among women.
President Buhari later donated two bulls, ten rams and the sum of N1,000,000 to the corps members for the Eid-el-Kabir celebration.
Nigeria’s Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi, has admitted that terrorists who stormed Kuje Correctional Centre in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and released their members and other criminals from the detention after three hour bombing and shooting, came in large number with superior weapons.
President Muhammadu Buhari has landed in his country home, Daura, in Katsina State, for Eid-el- Kabir celebrations coming up tomorrow, July 9.
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has reminded Abuja residents that COVID-19 has not been eradicated and still poses a danger to health.
President Muhammadu Buhari has deviated from the usual mild talks during festival period, and this time uses the occasion of Eid-el-Kabir to condemn the attitude of most Nigerians who are using religions as covers to perpetrate evil.
Before We Are All Kidnapped, By Fredrick Nwabufo
Religious leaders – both Christians and Muslims – have become the latest spectacle of these gangs of death-dealers from the netherworld.
On July 3, Udo Peter and Philemon Oboh, both priests of the Catholic Church, were abducted by gunmen in Edo state. The gunmen reportedly kidnapped the Catholic priests on Benin-Auchi expressway. On July 4, the despoilers kidnapped Emmanuel Silas, a Catholic priest, in Kaduna state. Silas was reportedly kidnapped in Zambina, Kauru LGA of the state.
On June 25, the ravagers killed Vitus Borogo, the chaplain of the Catholic Church in Kaduna Polytechnic. Borogo was reportedly killed at the Prison Farm, Kujama, along Kaduna-Kachia road. Weeks before this incident, Joseph Bako, a Catholic priest who was abducted in March from his residence at St John Catholic Church, Kudenda, Kaduna, was found dead.
On June 29, Samuel Kanu, Methodist prelate, was kidnapped in Abia state. The clergyman gave a depressingly harrowing account of his ordeal on the turf of these enemies of humanity. A few other priests have been kidnapped and some killed.
The kidnapping of priests appears methodic and targeted – just like the targeting and abduction of emirs and village heads by these ”bandits”. Perhaps the motive is to instigate and amplify religious tension. Already, there have been suggestions that these assaults on existence fit into a grand sinister plot. But we must realise, at all times, that these criminals are the common enemy of all. They have killed and kidnapped Muslims, Christians, children, young and old.
We must remain united against the devilment of those who want to cleave us apart.
These blights on humanity have sacked communities in Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina and elsewhere. They have expropriated land and are extracting tolls from citizens. Security agents have not been spared. They have been abducted and some reportedly have paid ransoms to secure their freedom. The plot on security seems totally lost.
A few days ago, a divisional police officer (DPO) who was leading his men to rescue kidnap victims in Nasarawa was himself stolen by these dare-devil freebooters. His abductors demanded five million naira before he would be freed. On June 26, Ochogwu Sunday, a divisional police officer in Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna was kidnapped. Other officers have either been kidnapped or killed. On Wednesday, Aminu Umar, an assistant commissioner of police, was felled by the crimson bullets of bandits in Katsina.
And it persists. No let-up. No solution. No prognosis of hope. No respite. But utter confusion, hopelessness and helplessness. The land is violated and coursing with the blood of innocents.
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has become of the hippodrome of bandits — where they put up defying performances and saunter away. For years, these criminal gangs have operated in the FCT – but the administration has always dismissed the potency of this threat.
A few days ago, some residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were kidnapped on their farm. Kuje where the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) recently did a blitzkrieg has been in the throes of terror. Some communities in the area have been sacked by kidnappers, and many residents have abandoned their houses to seek shelter elsewhere. Other parts of the FCT like Ushafa, Bwari and Kubwa have also been visited by the pestilence.
The blitz by ISWAP on the Abuja prison reveals the pregnability and rudderlessness of Nigeria’s seat of power. On Thursday, the US and the UK warned their citizens to be vigilant as crime would spike in the FCT. Kidnappings, armed robberies, drugs and all other iniquities have become the quotidian aspect of life in the nation’s capital. The FCT has never been this plagued.
Terrorists, possibly, converged within the FCT for days undetected or detected but no response; planned an attack which lasted for hours, and rode into the night afterwards like knights. Deeply disturbing. And fatally embarrassing.
What happened to the so-called game-changing Super Tucanos and other military hardware procured by the administration with a boast that the insurgents and bandits would be pulverised? So far, the government has spent N4 trillion on defence in seven years, yet there is no interlude of peace.
President Muhammadu Buhari must go beyond the expression of shock, airy statements, and at least mitigate this challenge before the elections. I believe he would not want to be remembered as Petronius Maximus who technically surrendered Rome to the Vandals.
Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and journalist.