The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian news

  • Logjam

    THAT morning, time appeared frozen for a while. Everything stood still and there was chaos everywhere. Both sides of the road were blocked. Those going to Lagos who were taking the right lane and those heading the same way but following the wrong way were stuck in traffic.

    The situation was beyond the security agencies; they just looked on as motorists sweated it out in traffic that early morning. It was just 6.07a.m., and everywhere was locked down. Ascending the Long Bridge at Wawa was impossible as traffic stretched backward from there to MFM.

    It was also impossible descending the bridge at the same point as those trying to ascend it the wrong way blocked oncoming vehicles. Policemen from the nearby Wawa Police Division shouted themselves hoarse as they tried to restore sanity. But the motorists did not budge. They were determined to have their way despite being in the wrong.

    What happened around that corridor of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway on Monday was sheer madness. All hell was let loose as motorists attempted to get out of the traffic congestion at the same time at all costs,  but the more they did so, the more they compounded the gridlock. It was not something that should have caught the security agencies offguard because it all started on Sunday. They should have prepared for the Monday madness going by what happened the previous day.

    Anybody who followed that road on Sunday would have foreseen what happened on Monday. I was prepared for it, thinking that by leaving home around 6a.m., I would not be caught in the logjam. I was wrong. By the time I hit the express around 6.06a.m., I knew there was trouble. I was not prepared for what I saw. My calculation was that I would have ascended the bridge before running into traffic. But I ran into traffic virtually in front of my home.

    As I took my turn in the Lagos-bound traffic from Arepo busstop, I surveyed my surrounding; I had ample time to do that since we were not moving anyway. The drama on the other side of the road kept us busy as motorists blocking oncoming vehicles stood their ground.  There would not have been any need for that if the security agencies had got their act right ahead of time going by what we were told before Julius Berger began work at the Kara/Berger axis last month.

    They should have envisaged what happened on Monday and taken precautionary steps. Men and materials should have been stationed at both ends of the Long Bridge at Wawa long before dawn to stop any motorist from driving against traffic. As usual, they left everything to chance. You do not take chances in matters like this knowing full well the way many motorists behave at the slightest sign of traffic jam.

    The presence of the police and road safety personnel would have deterred motorists from driving against traffic. There is no other time than now for them to make their presence felt more on that  road,  at least until Julius Berger finishes its work there. Traffic on that road is something that motorists have come to live with, but their pains can be eased, especially during this difficult period of its rehabilitation by Julius Berger. This can be done with the police and road safety personnel maintaining a 24-hour vigilance on the road.

    The police and road safety personnel should not just appear on the scene when things have gone awry and think that they can perform magic. We have talked and talked about alternative routes to ease motorists’ pain without anything being done about the issue.

    Rather than improve on the untarred route from Wawa that bursts out at the OPIC intersection, Julius Berger has dug a ditch across the road, making it unusable. If the place had been available on Monday, things would not have been that bad. Why did Julius Berger do that? We may never know as the citizenry and their wellbeing matter little to the government and its contractors in matters like this. So, I will not be surprised if that Monday episode repeats itself. It was the last day of September and it turned out to be the most memorable day of the month. A September to remember! You can say that again.

    Cry of distress

    THE cry came from the depths of her heart. “Why do they like to kidnap me?” Madam Beauty Uguoere Siasia asked no one in particular. She was thinking out loud. She answered the poser thus: “They said my son is a millionaire”. Is it an offence for someone’s child to be well to do?

    I fear for Mama Siasia who kidnappers have now turned into ATM. They know that if they kidnap her, her son Samson will cough out any amount to get her back. For how long will she and her family live in fear of kidnappers? The first time they came for her in  2015, they held her for 12 days.

    They returned for her on July 19 and kept her till Sunday before releasing her after collecting an undisclosed amount of ransom. At 80, she does not deserve this kind of treatment. What she deserves now is round the clock protection by the police. Will that be asking for too much? I do not think so.

  • Inferior gas cylinders

    •A call for more vigilance to Standards Organisation of Nigeria

    The danger of cooking gas cylinder explosion has increased in the country with the importation of substandard cylinders. In August, cooking gas cylinder explosion in Warri almost killed a couple, but for the quick intervention of the police and fire fighters, and proximity of the explosion to the police station. And in China, the country’s CCTV also reported gas cylinder explosions in March and April in Xianyang City and in Wuxi, Jiangsu.

    We find the existence of substandard cooking gas cylinders very alarming. It is counterproductive that at a time that the population, especially in both urban and rural areas, is increasingly warming up to transition from cooking with wood to gas, the conditions for importing cooking gas cylinders seem to have become lax to the point that cylinders without brand name and batch number are now common in the country. The fear of cylinder explosion is capable of driving citizens back to the tradition of deforestation and its negative impact on the environment.

    It is embarrassing that the in-flow of substandard cylinders has reached a level that compels staff of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to go to markets in search of substandard gas cylinders. The danger posed by defective cooking gas cylinders is serious enough for SON and the Customs to stop such products at the ports of entry. SON’s vigilance would be more effective if its mobile laboratory at the ports had tested every batch of imported cylinders into the country. This is an assignment that could have been carried out in collaboration with other safety and security units that are always present at the ports.

    Further, marketers who are frustrating SON’s staff from looking for cylinders without batch numbers are not helping matters. Government at all times has the duty to ensure that  substandard products do not thrive in the country, even if after such products had gotten through the ports without detection. Such belated checks are better than leaving citizens and their property at the mercy of imported or even domestic products that could be dangerous to life and property of citizens. Retailers of such products ought to be sensitive to the well-being of their customers.

    Relatedly, government and other stakeholders should begin massive enlightenment on how to distinguish good from bad gas cylinders, and give retailers and users adequate information about the danger in holding on to products that are dangerous to individuals and the community. It is one thing for a country to find a dumping ground for substandard products from its factories, but it is expected that the citizens, especially those in the business of importing such defective products, will be mindful of quality and safety of such products, before marketing them to innocent buyers.

    Indeed, it is high time the local manufacturing by Techno Oil Ltd of Nigeria’s TechnoGas LPG cylinders at the 31st World LPG Forum in Houston, Texas is developed to include production of cooking gas cylinders that citizens can buy without fear of causing fire to its users. The SON needs to give as much attention to certifying the Nigerian brand as it does to imported brands from China and elsewhere.

    Nigeria, among other developing countries, cannot afford to lose the war on deforestation arising from reliance on wood and charcoal as fuel for cooking. The most effective way to win this war and protect citizens from avoidable harm is to ensure that cooking gas cylinders in the country meet global quality and safety standards.

  • Atiku’s lamentable lamentation (II)

    The Daily Times’ great satirist, Ndaeyo Uko, once told the story of two ‘mad’ men, one of whom found his moment of lucidity stalking what he believed was a ‘suicidal customer’ at a food vending shack around which the lunatic had hung daily for leftovers; and if memory serves right, the other lunatic found his lucid moment stalking Uko’s very own father who he perceived also as being on a trendy, ‘suicidal’ tie-wearing madness. But not remembering the details of Uko’s interesting stories, I have arrogated to myself the poetic license to serve you my embellished versions of that great writer’s originals. The mad one at the eatery, over time, must’ve taken a deranged notice of this particular customer who regularly came asking to be served a combination of ‘ogbono’, ‘egusi’ and ‘ewedu’ soups to go with his favourite swallow -should we say- ‘eba’? Except that on this particular day, the ‘mad man’, it appeared, must’ve had enough hearing this gastronomically ‘self-harming’ alimentary combination. He had resolved, this fateful day, to end this ‘madness’ once and for all! And so after this customer had been served, the ‘lunatic’ angrily walked to his table, snatched the bowl of ‘soup’, guzzled it in one mad gulp, took the malformed mound of ‘eba’, stashed it in his raggedy pocket, handed over the emptied plates to the dumbfounded customer, and now at the top of his voice warned: “Always eat one soup so that we know the one that kill you! I say eat one soup” he repeated as he walked away, “so that we know the one that kill you!!”

    Uko’s other ‘lunatic’ was no less forceful in his demand, nor any less authoritative in the expression of his momentary lucidity. This one too must’ve -for some time- taken a deranged notice of Uko’s presumably civil-servant father, as the man would appear every morning to go to work wearing either a one-piece suit or a well-starched, short-sleeved shirt, but always on a perfectly knotted tie. And so, on this fateful day, the ‘mad man’, apparently having had enough watching what he must’ve thought was a daily, self-strangulating ‘madness’, had walked straight up to Uko’s father, grabbed him firmly by the tie, and at the top of his voice, was now questioning the victim of his stranglehold: “when will you allow this neck rest!? I say when will you free this neck!!?” And although it may have taken the intervention of neighbours to pull this ‘lunatic’ off the jugular of Uko’s gasping father, yet the moral of stories like these cannot be lost on the discerning; and which is that: there is just a thin line between sanity and insanity; and that often both those who lay claim to sanity and those who are truly insane may cross the threshold without knowing that they have. Ndaeyo Uko had used these stories as some kind of comic relief to caricature the weekly display of intemperance by an Admiral, Augustus Aighomu, IBB’s number two man who had a habit of turning his weekly press conference with State House correspondents into some kind of mad house for the vilest language to reply the regime’s many critics. But such malady becomes even one of a terribly infinite proportion if it has to take a tap by the existentially mad, on the shoulders of the presumably ‘clearheaded’, to warn them they are hovering right on the threshold.

    And so I was wondering, what would a momentarily lucid ‘mad man’ with a keen mind on the ‘juridical’ –as against the culinary or the trendy- have said to a litigious Atiku Abubakar, especially given the Waziri’s cheaply opportunistic grounds of petition against Buhari’s victory? Because we have seen that each of the three grounds of Atiku’s petition was actually an obvious gamble reminiscent of the opportunistic casket-game in Shakespeare’s tragic-comic play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Permit me to digress a little. To fulfil her late father’s royal wish, wealthy heiress of Belmont, Princes Portia, dutifully consents to a game of caskets by which, in the wisdom of her father, she may escape ‘gold diggers’ and gain a suitable husband from among princely suitors who must choose the casket containing her picture by un-coding both the ornamental motifs of the ‘precious’ metals by which the three caskets are represented and the confusing inscriptions that they respectively bear, namely, the ‘gold’ casket: ‘Who chooseth me shall GAIN WHAT MANY MEN DESIRE’; the ‘silver’: ‘Who chooseth me shall GET AS MUCH AS HE DESERVES’ and the ‘lead’ ‘Who chooseth me must GIVE AND HAZARD ALL HE HATH’.

    But like Ndaeyo Uko’s ‘souper’ who loved his ‘ogbono’, ‘egusi’ and ‘ewedu’ all in one bowl, Atiku had acted true to his covetous and gluttonous patrician character. He wanted all three precious metals: gold, silver and lead; and he wanted all three soups: ‘ogbono’, ‘egusi’ and ‘ewedu’. The claim that Atiku won the election was merely a ploy to shroud his opportunistic reliance on two seemingly low-hanging fruits: his contrived ‘server result sheet’ which –for its non-justiciability- was dead on arrival, and the non-issue of Buhari’s ‘qualification’ which –conscionably- was weak. Thus all that Atiku had succeeded in doing at the tribunal was to prove himself a jack of three dubious trades –‘cert’, ‘server’ and ‘substantial non-compliance’; and in the end he had turned out a grouchy ‘master of none’! Atiku had proved himself both of two proverbial opportunistic soldiers: a ‘soldier of fortune’ and a ‘sunshine soldier’. He had also proved himself both of two proverbial seekers of idle fortune: a ‘treasure hunter’ and a ‘gold digger’. He had hoped to reap where he did not sow. And without proving any of the three grounds, Atiku still believes that he has been denied justice. Meaning that either all five justices knew no law at all, or that they have elected –against the grain of law- to pervert justice. In truth, it is Atiku who had angled desperately to pervert and to benefit from the perversion of justice: his calumnious campaign for the removal of judges on the tribunal he did not trust, his desperate attempts to force judges to descend to the gallery, his frequent appeal to a partisan court of public opinion, his curious request to meet the tribunal judges in camera and his public denunciation of ‘law and fact’ in favour of what he termed ‘the pulse’ of the nation, all revealed a litigant who knew that he had no case. All of Atiku’s juristic ‘armour’, his ‘sword’ and his ‘shield’ rested on one ridiculously presumptive proof, that he won the election because it was ‘obvious’ that ‘Nigerians wanted Buhari to lose’.

    And that is Atiku for you. He is Nigeria’s only politician you’ll know who seems always, to exude this preeminent entitlement to be paid back –economically and politically- for some great favour you’d think he must’ve done to Nigeria in time past; very rare favours such as should equate, metaphorically, say, to giving a dying person the ‘kiss of life’ or cardio-vascular pulmonary (mouth-to-mouth) resuscitation; or maybe some great deed of derring-do such as equates, say, with being Nigeria’s Dedan Kimathi who led the country’s version of Kenya’s Mau-Mau revolution to secure our independence. Atiku is about the only politician you’ll know who approaches the politics of ruling this country with this toga of subtle -even if haughty- claim to a ‘right of first refusal’. And it is probably the reason he always demands his political desert in a combination of three uncompromising soups. Its either an all ‘ogbono’, ‘egusi’ and ‘ewedu’ bowl, or a gruelling court fight to the last ounce of energy! It is either his ‘gold, silver and lead’ all at once or no ‘casket game’ at all! Because to Atiku alone belongs not only the right to the ‘gold casket’ wherein to ‘GAIN WHAT MANY MEN DESIRE’ and the right to the ‘silver casket’ wherein to ‘GET AS MUCH AS HE DESERVES’, to him also belongs the right to the basest of them all, the ‘lead casket’, because Atiku is the only Nigerian politician you’ll also know who is ready to ‘GIVE AND HAZARD ALL HE HATH’ in order that he ‘GAINs WHAT MANY MEN DESIRE’ and that of it, he ‘GETs AS MUCH AS HE DESERVES’.

    Concluded

  • 2020 Budget: Buhari to chair extra-ordinary FEC Saturday

    Towards presenting the 2020 budget proposals to the National Assembly next week, President Muhammadu Buhari will on Saturday preside over an extraordinary Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

    This was disclosed by a top government official on Wednesday.

    The new efforts are towards returning the Federal Government budget cycle from May-June to January-December.

    The FEC meeting on Saturday is expected to cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘I’s in final preparation for the submission to the two chambers of the National Assembly.

    Read Also; Buhari presides over FEC meeting in Aso Rock

    The presentation was meant to have taken place in the third week of September, but was stalled by President Buhari’s participation at the 74th United Nations General Assembly.

    Buhari had also on Wednesday proceeded to South Africa on state visit to honor the invitation of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, towards discussing welfare of Nigerians, and finding common grounds for building harmonious relations with their hosts.

  • LG primaries: APC aspirants protest, reject alleged imposition

    The crisis rocking the All Progressive Congress(APC) in Ekiti on Wednesday deepened as some of its aggrieved local government chairmanship aspirants protested against alleged imposition of candidate.

    The protesters led by Mrs. Tosin Aluko and Tajudeen Gidado, who are chairmanship aspirants in the council for the December 7, 2019 elections in the state besieged the Secretariat at about 9.30 am to express their grievances.

    The party had earlier last week Saturday suspended primaries in Ado, Ikole and Ekiti East local governments over alleged security threat and rumour that some members were planning to disrupt the process in a violent manner.

    It was gathered that the Deputy Governor and leader of the party in Ado Ekiti council, Chief Bisi Egbeyemi and 35 others had picked Mrs Omotunde Fajuyi against the wishes of the two other aspirants.

    The two aspirants faulted and rejected the consensus process that produced Mrs Fajuyi as the candidate, saying such was a flagrant violation of party’s constitution, which stipulated that there must be indirect primary when consensus option fails.

    They said the decision doesn’t reflect the interest and free will of the party members, saying the principle of internal democracy should not be inhibited but rather strengthened.

    But the APC State Publicity Secretary, Hon Ade Ajayi, said the party was not interested in imposition of candidates.

    Ajayi also exonerated Governor Kayode Fayemi of complicity in the crises that dogged the primaries, warning that nobody should bring the governor into the controversial issue.

    “Some group of people came to protest here today and said they rejected the consensus option in Ado Ekiti. They were led by Mrs Tosin Aluko and Mr. Tajudeen Gidado.

    “They came with placards carrying inscription that they rejected imposition, that they wanted primaries. We have never contemplated imposition as a party.

    Read Also; APC loses Chief Security Officer

    “The party will look into their protest vis- a vis the letter signed by the Deputy Governor and 35 leaders . You know that the Deputy Governor is the leader of the party in Ado Ekiti and you know what it means for him to have signed for consensus. The state exco will meet on the issue and take a position.

    “We are not ready to impose anybody and nobody must bring the name of Governor Kayode Fayemi into this matter”.

    Ajayi said the party has set up intervention and reconciliation committees to interface with the aggrieved aspirants on how to resolve the crises trailing the conduct of the primaries in the three councils.

    He said the party took a proactive measures by postponing the primaries on Saturday in the three councils upon realising that some hoodlums wanted to hijack the process to allegedly burn down some marked houses .

    On efforts being made to pacify the aggrieved candidates, the APC spokesman said : “We are getting representations from various communities, because we recognise the right of every individual to contest in our party without being deprived.

    “We have invited leaders from Ikole, Ekiti East and Ado Ekiti , so all the issues are being attended to and it will be resolved amicably”, he assured.

  • Obaseki sacks SAs, SSAs

    Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has sacked all Special Assistants and Senior Special Assistants.

    Governor Obaseki had appointed 192 Special Assistants representing each ward in the state and 54 Senior Special Assistants comprising three persons from each local government areas

    Obaseki later appointed 18 Special Assistants (females) on Gender.

    In a letter signed by Secretary to the State Government, Barr. Osarodion Ogie, the sacking of the SAs and SSAs was with immediate effect.

    Ogie said the sacking was in line with efforts to reorganise governance structure to enhance efficient service delivery to Edo people.

    Read Also; Don’t sell Azura power plant, ex-aide tells Obaseki

    He said the sacked appointees should hand over government properties in their possession.

    The letter said fresh appointments would be announced within 30 days.

  • Stop linking APC candidate, Agip to terrorism, lawmaker tells Dickson

    A member of the House of Representatives, Isreal Sunny-Goli, has told Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, to stop accusing the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and the candidate All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief David Lyon, of funding terrorism.

    Dickson earlier accused NAOC of outsourcing terrorism in Bayelsa through pipeline security and surveillance contracts and named Lyon as one of the company’s contractors.

    The governor said that the oil firm was giving out surveillance contracts to outlaws in the oil-producing communities created and sustained by them.

    But Sunny- Goli, who represents Nembe/ Brass Federal Constituency, described governor’s allegations as hogwash saying the governor was afraid of Lyon’s popularity.

    He exonerated the oil multinational of the allegation saying the firm had nothing to do with the growing popularity and acceptability of the APC candidate in Bayelsa.

    He said the governor was in shock following his realisation that the APC and Lyon were more popular than the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Senator Douye Diri.

    The lawmaker explained that it was widely known that Agip as an oil firm never mixed politics with its business of oil exploration since it commenced activities in Nigeria.

    He appealed to Dickson to stop blaming his political woes and the rejection of his party and its candidate on innocent oil firms and individuals.

    Sunny-Goli said the governor should rather concentrate on using his remaining months in office to improve the living conditions of Bayelsans

    He said: “First and foremost, Governor Dickson is in a confused state. He is confused in the sense that he is spreading lies.

    “Agip is not a party to the growing popularity of APC in Bayelsa State; Agip is not a party to our acceptability in this state as the only alternative to the PDP in Bayelsa.

    Read Also; I waited for 15 years after wedlock to give birth – Dickson’s wife

    “I want to ask Dickson some questions was it Agip that told him for the past seven and half years not to pay workers full salaries? Was it Agip that told him not to utilise the Paris Fund to pay gratuities and pensions to retirees? Was it Agip that told Dickson not to complete the construction of the 7km road Isaac Boro Express road?

    “He should go to Rivers State and see the roads his colleague Governor Nyesom Wike is constructing. The truth of the matter is that Dickson is a drowning man. Bayelsans have rejected him and the PDP completely because of the mismanagement of the affairs of the state.

    “So he is trying to come out to feed Bayelsans with lies. It has become obvious to Bayelsans that Dickson has been lying for the past seven years and there is no way to remedy it again so all he is trying to do is blame his woes on innocent firms and individuals but this cannot save him.

    “Agip is innocent of all the allegations levelled against it. The allegations are baseless and vague. There are issues of governance for him to tackle he should come home and tackle them instead of going around to deceive Nigerians.”

  • Court remands 2 friends for unlawful possession of Cannabis

    A Federal High Court in Osun on Wednesday ordered that two friends be remanded in a correctional facility for allegedly being in possession of Cannabis Sativa.

    Justice Peter Lifu, ordered that Akanni Kenny and Abidoye Obafemi, be remanded in a Nigerian Correctional Service centre in Ile Ife, due to the magnitude of the alleged offense committed.

    He overruled the bail application filed by defence counsel, Mr O.N. Benson.

    Justice Lifu adjourned the matter until Oct. 30.

    Earlier, the NDLEA Counsel, Mr O.F Azugo, told the court that the defendants committed the offence on Aug. 24 ,at Ipetu-Ijesa town ,Osun.

    Read Also: Senate to ensure prosecution of airport drug cartels

    Azugo alleged that the defendants were apprehended by the command when transporting the illicit drugs.

    He said the offence contravened the provisions of sections 19 and 20 (1)(a) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act Cap 30, laws of the Federation ,2004.

    They pleaded not guilty to the charge.

    (NAN)

  • Osinbajo pledges ‘uncompromised loyalty’ to Buhari

    Despite recent reports of cracks in the Presidency, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has pledged his uncompromised loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari and Nigeria.

    This was contained in a magazine entitled, ‘This is Nigeria’ and circulated at the 1st October 2019 Independence Day Dinner on Tuesday night at the old Banquet hall of the State House, Abuja.

    Osinbajo’s message with the title ‘Uncompromised Loyalty’ was contained in page 15 of the Brands International Special Edition of the magazine, which is the official magazine for Mr. President’s Next Level Agenda, 9th Assembly and One Nigeria, locally and internationally.

    The message reads “Vice President Yemi Osibanjo Commemorates With Nigerians On The 59th Anniversary Celebration, While Pledging His Loyalty To President Muhammadu Buhari

    “This day means everything to us as a people, because it is our day of freedom. Let me first congratulate my Boss,
    President, Muhammadu Buhari, His Excellency, Ahmed Bola Tinubu our National Leader, Dr. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, First Lady and mother of the nation.

    “Also, I celebrate every Nigerian out there on the street trying to make ends meet, not forgetting those who stand out in different areas of human endeavours, home and abroad.”

    He went on “Fellow Nigerians, be rest assured that President Muhammadu Buhari is totally committed to his promises and the Next Level Agenda. He is he best Boss and I find it thrilling to serve Nigeria under him. It is only responsible of me to give my unwavering loyalty to President Buhari and Nigeria as I promise to stand by him, while contributing my quota at all times to the growth of Nigeria.

    Read Also: Osinbajo, Ortom meet over Benue, Ebonyi land crisis

    “I call on all well-meaning Nigerians to queue behind President Buhari as he leads us to build a stronger bigger and greater Nigeria.” he stated

    But speculations about the division in the Presidency was fueled by the recent replacement of the Economic Management Team headed by Osinbanjo with the Economic Advisory Council mandated to report directly to Buhari.

    The reported removal of government agencies from under Osinbajo, which he had been the board chairman, had also supported the reports of hostilities in the Presidency.

    The agencies included National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), National Boundary Commission (NBC), Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), and National Council on Privatisation (NCP).

    Also, the announcement on 1st October national broadcast of movement of the Social Investments Programmes (SIP) from under the Vice President to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development also fueled the rumour of crack in the Villa.

  • ‘Southwest governors, proactive to new security challenges’

    Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on Wednesday said his colleagues in the Southwest geo-political zone were responding comprehensively to various security challenges facing the zone.

    Akeredolu, who is also the Chairman, Southwest Governors Forum, disclosed this in Akure during at a church service for the state’s covenant renewal day 2019.

    The Governor who was represented by his deputy, Agboola Ajayi said the state was working in collaboration with sister states to re-jig the security architecture of the zone to respond adequately to new challenges.

    He said “It is no longer news that our country is going through security challenges. Therefore, all hands must be on deck to salvage it together.

    “We are doing our best to respond comprehensively to the new challenges. Ondo State is working in collaboration with sister states in Southwestern zone to re-jig the security architecture of the zone to make it respond adequately to the new challenges.

    ” Government has never relented on its efforts yo curb crime and criminalities within our boundaries. We will continue this until our people can sleep with their two eyes closed.

    “Nigeria must survive its challenges and it is possible if we all agree and pray together in unison,” he said.

    The Governor described the church service as an opportunity to renew strength and pray to God for future life the state, said no government or organisation could achieve craved height.

    He recommended that other states of the Federation and the Federal Government should renew their covenant with God on yearly basis.

    According to him “There is, therefore, a compelling need for collaboration of all stakeholders in the task of building a virile and egalitarian society.

    “It is indeed heartening to be in the presence of several eminent spiritual leaders of Christian body for 2019 edition of this special programme.

    “It will be recalled that I gladly participated in the last edition, because we know that our dear state and indeed Nigeria needs continuous prayers.

    “Our administration since inception has partnered the Ondo State chapters of PFN,CAN and other groups, in almost all their programmes and events.”