President Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged that some issues of agitation by some groups and sections in the country, with reference to, among others, the agitators for Biafran Republic out of Nigerian and Boko Haram,, could not be ignored.
The President said however that the answer to such agitation and effort to reduce tension is the creation of employment opportunities for all.
Buhari spoke through Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the graduation of Senior Executive Course 37 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru near Jos.
The President however asked persons and interest groups within the country to submit to peaceful means of expressing themselves without violating the laws of the land.
He reminded the citizens of his resolve that Boko Haram and other such insurgent groups around the country would soon be consigned to history, even as he gave good tiding that Nigeria had entered its glorious era in spite of insecurity and economic challenges.
He charged the institute to conduct comprehensive study on causes of insurgency and how to build civil capacity to defeat mindless violence.
“I want the Institute to come up with policies which integrate needs of the vast majority of the populace and not just based on GDP projections.
“MNIs end up in their offices after their course of study at NIPPS, without the required enthusiasm to enforce implementation of the policies they made. I think we must encourage ourselves and take ourselves seriously instead of doing this just to take a title.
“The institute will find a way of monitoring members instead of just producing high quality results, which just die here. Let’s make efforts to see that those who implement policies use them.”
The President said that his administration would support the Institute with funding, but that corruption is still the bane of the nation’s development.
“What has eluded our leadership is not lack of good policies but strength of character to implement them.
“Our problem is not legislative, but lack of political will and weak legal process, delay in the judiciary and suppression of the entire legal system.”
Buhari, however, said his administration would address this and other distortions in the system on which corruption of leadership thrived.
No fewer than 63 persons graduated as Members of the National Institute at the ceremony, bringing the total number of its granduands since inception in 1979 to 1,784.
NAN. [myad]
