THE Federal Government has urged all relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government to close ranks in addressing internal security challenges in Nigeria.
The Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, who made the call in Abuja, expressed the determination of his ministry to work in synergy with all relevant stakeholders in the security sector so as to return Nigeria to a safe and secure nation in order to move the country to the next level of socio-economic development.
He spoke when he was presented with the Nigeria and Africa Development Indicators Monitoring (NADIM) Foundation 2018 outstanding leadership awards.
According to him, the security of Nigeria is one of the major cardinal policy thrusts of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and the mandate of the Ministry of Interior is to drive this policy by ensuring the protection of life and property of Nigerians and citizenship integrity.
The minister noted that he would bring his wealth of experience as former governor of Osun State to bear which include his policies and initiatives that led to his getting nine NADIM 2018 outstanding leadership awards for the Ministry of Interior.
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“I will not renege on the promise I made when I assumed duty in the ministry in August 2019, that I will provide necessary leadership to the Ministry of Interior and its agencies in a way that would ensure the safety of all Nigerians,” Aregbesola said.
The prestigious NADIM 2018 outstanding leadership awards presented to the minister in recognition of his achievements during his tenure as Osun State governor.
He was given nine awards for being first Overall Best State Development in Nigeria, Second Best State in percentage of births delivered in health facilities, third best State in percentage of women employed, among other awards.
The minister recalled that while he was governor of Osun State, he empowered women to be self-employed by granting them interest-free loans, as well as youth empowerment to promote security in the state.
He thanked NADIM for the selfless task of the findings that led to the awards, and equally thanked President Buhari for the opportunity to serve.
Speaking earlier, founder of NADIM, Professor Taofeek Ibrahim, while presenting the awards to the minister, said they came up with the idea on the need to assess developmental achievements of people in leadership in Nigeria and Africa.
According to him, the achievements of Aregebsola as governor of Osun State between 2010 and 2018 which were critically analysed based on academic research, findings and evaluation earned him the honour.
Ibrahim said the report of NADIM’s analysis and awards were presented to the public at the Yar’Adua Centre, in Abuja on 22nd January, 2019.
“It took us more than three years of rigorous research and scrutiny to come up with these findings, hence the length of the time before publishing our figures in 2018. We also obtained data from reports of the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, Transparency International and Social Progress Imperatives for the comparison of African Countries,” he said.
Ibrahim said further that, NADIM foundation was born out of the need to address the developmental gaps arising from the key findings of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.
He said the findings were carried out by the Federal Government through the National Population Commission “and further analysed in our book entilted, Development Performance Ranking of Nigerian States and Monitoring of African Countries.”