Despite the insecurity, economic challenges and the imminent face-off between the organised labour owing to governors’ plan to cut down on the N18,000 minimum wage, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Saturday that Nigeria has entered its glorious era.
President Buhari at the graduation of Senior Executive Course 37 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS) in Kuru near Jos, assured that not minding the pockets of attacks by the dreaded Boko Haram and other such insurgent groups around the country, their era would soon be consigned to history.
Represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Buhari acknowledged agitations by some groups and sections in the country but said that creating employment opportunities would reduce the tension.
State governors at their last meeting had said the N18,000 minimum wage is no longer but the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is poised to resist the plan for a cut on the wage which it said is poor with the current economic realities.
Businesses in the country are also facing hard time with the closure of some and increasing job losses with fears that it could get worse.
Buhari however played down the challenges and 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.
“MNI’s 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, ” he said.
The president said that his administration would support the institute with funding, but remarked that corruption was 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,” he said.
He said that his administration would address this and other distortions in the system on which corruption of leadership thrived.
Buhari called on persons and interest groups within the country to submit to peaceful means of expressing themselves without violating the laws of the land.
About 63 persons graduated as Members of the National Institute (MNI) at the ceremony, bringing the total number of its granduands since inception in 1979 to 1,784.
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