By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, while on a working visit to the National headquarter of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Abuja, expressed confidence in the capacity of the newly appointed Commandant General of NSCDC, Dr Ahmed Abubakar Audi, to reposition the Corps to become a more profound player in the security architecture of the country, as well as in securing Nigerians and their property.
According to him, his emergence as the CG after a keen and extensive contest was purely on merit and not by accident or favoritism.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Shuaib Belgore, the Minister lamented the state of insecurity in the country, which has been a challenge to the country and charged the Commandant General to take up that responsibility to return Nigeria back to the old days when people can travel freely without fear of being waylaid, kidnapped or assassinated.
He told the NSCDC boss that it is not beyond the Corps to restore the country to a safe haven that it always has been, “there is a reason for your appointment by Mr President and Commander in Chief of the Armed forces and it is required that you return our country to safety and bring it to peaceful times” the Minister said.
He emphasized that Dr Audi’s appointment by the president is based on the observance that there is capacity to deliver on improving the security landscape of Nigeria which a lot of work and investments has gone into.
He said that “Nigeria has so much attractiveness in terms of the terrain, the geography, the people, the agricultural layout, the market and the infrastructure, hence there is need to protect, defend and sustain our nation by maintaining internal peace and security.”
Ogbeni Aregbesola maintained that before the emergence of the new Commandant General, NSCDC has had challenges rising to the occasion of meeting the country’s need and fulfilling the mandates of the Corps that keeps expanding every day and to meet it, everybody in the Corps has to be on the same page with the commandant general.
‘’I want to charge all officers and men to give unalloyed support to the CG who has a fantastic vision which he enumerated on the day he was sworn in by the Hon minister. He has grand plans which should be adopted by everybody and all should make sure that this plans are achieved’’.
