The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has said it is time to salvage Nigeria and make it a land of prosperity for future generations.
He made this known while delivering his address at the party’s Northwest stakeholders meeting held in Kaduna at the weekend.
He said there is no better time to fix the country than now because “this is the first time a thoroughbred democrat and politician is leading our country as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, we have no excuse to fail.
“Good enough, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not left anyone in doubt about his genuine commitment to turn the fortunes of our nation around for the betterment of all of us.”
According to Ganduje, “There’s, therefore, an urgent need for our party stakeholders to engage in massive sensitization of Nigerians on the giant strides of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to facilitate a Nigeria that truly works for all classes of Nigerians.”
He noted that the President has also clearly shown us that politics must not always divide us or cause bad blood, saying, “Presidency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, from what we have seen, has stuck to the path of rebuilding Nigeria.
“I decided to dwell on this since the President is the leader of our party. The President has gone ahead to appoint some opposition personalities into key ministries and offices, which is a key example of politics without bitterness. We must commend him for this.
“We need peace and unity if we are to achieve success in all our endeavors. No seed of progress can germinate or grow where there is a crisis.
“We need to work as a team. If we work as a team, we will be able to attract the best to our domain, which is the North West zone. A house divided against itself cannot stand the test of time.”
Ganduje added that” politics is about superior negotiating skills, not pulling a stunt; those who resorted to that in the past had themselves to blame. The politics of rising men and women is what brought Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to the Presidency, and that is a lesson we all must imbibe.
“If we come to support ourselves, rally around the President, build our party, and develop our geopolitical zone to enviable heights economically and politically, together we will reap the fruit of our labour.
“We must salvage Nigeria and make it a land of prosperity for all of us and our children. We must stand against the words of bitterness and rancor. It must be a new dawn for our geopolitical zone.”
On the insecurity bedeviling the region as well as other parts of the country, he said that “enough is enough for the large-scale insecurity in many parts of the country, including our geopolitical zone.
“We must all work together to ensure the security of lives and property for our people. This is the cardinal objective of any government in power.
“If we work together as a team to ensure the security of lives and property in our geographical zone, democratic dividends and economic viability will be the order of the day. To achieve this, we must think outside the box.
“We are all aware of the crisis between farmers and herders, which graduated into cattle rustling, which graduated into kidnapping, which graduated into banditry. We are all aware that our forests in Nigeria and all over the world were meant to balance the ecosystem.
“But what is happening to our forest now? The forests to us, are now homes to bandits. So, we must find out a practical solution to these problems. We must protect our forests.
“We must train the Forest Rapid Response Squad that is stationed within the forests, with their houses and infrastructural facilities within the forests.
“We must train them, equip them, and provide technology into our forests so that we can take over completely. If we succeed in doing that, then the issue of banditry, kidnapping, and armed robbery will be eventually resolved,” he said.
