By Sumaila Ogbaje
The Campaign for Democracy (CD), a pro-democracy, civil society and human rights organisation, has backed President Bola Tinubu on the removal of fuel subsidy.
The group made this known in a communique issued by its North Central Executive Committee at the end of its meeting on Friday in Minna, a copy of which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.
The communique was jointly signed by the Chairman, North Central Zone, Dr Abdullahi Mohammed, and Secretary General, Mr Abdulwahid Adeniran.
They urged the president to restructure the nation’s security architecture to effectively tackle the challenge of insecurity as well as Nigeria as a country.
They said the expectation of Nigerians were high in tandem with the renewed hope principle and focused policy of the administration.
According to the communique, the removal of the fuel subsidy was long overdue and welcome the development for the good of Nigerians.
The group also urged the government to do the needful by putting necessary palliative policy measures and logistics to soften the hardship that might accompany the new paradigm shift among the citizens.
“That there is a need for national task force comprising of the Army, Police, Customs, Navy, Air Force, Civil Defence and non-state actors, civil society, among other stakeholders, to check the arbitrary price increase of the product, stop exploitation of the people by fuel marketers and their collaborators/dealers to tarnish the image of the new administration in the eyes of the public,” they said.
The group also called on stakeholders in the educational sector to come up with solutions to the challenges of 12.3 million out-of-school in Nigeria as a result of insecurity.
They also advocated that the president should give directions to child education through resettlement of IDPs, tackle banditry, poverty, food insecurity and socio- economic challenges confronting the nation.
The group recommended that federal government policy programme implementation be adopted at sub-national state and local governments for the benefit of Nigerians.
According to them, this synergy is key towards collaborative building of the country.
Besides, CD called on Tinubu to restructure the nation’s security architecture for better performance to further curb crimes and criminalities.
They however commended the Armed Forces of Nigeria for taking the battle against insurgency, kidnapping and banditry to the door steps of the criminals.
According to the group, the battle against insecurity is winnable by our gallant military men and officers in the theatre of the war.
They therefore called on all stakeholders to support Tinubu toward physical and economically restructuring of Nigeria for the common interest of all.
The group congratulated the new governor and deputy governor of Niger, advising them to partner with all relevant stakeholders for the peace and development of the state.
“We appeal to the incoming government to take the welfare of civil servants seriously by providing motivational incentives to improve the working conditions of workers and ensure commensurate take home wages and salaries are paid as of when due,” the group urged. (NAN)