By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Governor Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed has enjoined Muslims to apply the lessons of the Ramadan towards solving personal, communal and national problems with the aim of deepening personal discipline, family values, love of one another, national unity and above all, their personal relationship with Allah.
Senator Bala Mohammed explained that the rigorous self-denial, religious teachings and piety of the Ramadan have armed Muslims with the spiritual weapons of tolerance, forgiveness, love, mutual respect, and the fear of God.
Mohammed, in an Eid-el fitr message to the people of Bauchi state, noted that with these traits, people can defeat the cankerworms of hunger, greed, mutual suspicion, insecurity, nepotism, separatist agitations, among others, that put a wedge between our peoples, deepen mutual suspicion, erode confidence in government and threaten the country’s corporate existence.
He stressed the need for Lowering the temperature of politics ravaging the country and deepening its historical fault-lines. Let us be inebriated by the Eid-el fitr spirit, to see politics as service to God and humanity, and not as a winner-takes-all battle or a do-or-die affair, for personal conquest or narrow group interest.
According to him, politicians either as contestants or in support of proffered candidates must play the game by its rules, and called on all political parties and contestants of various elective offices to prevail on their supporters to be of good conduct in the course of their electioneering campaigns.
“Adopt a bipartisan approach towards tackling insecurity and the factors that fuel it such as unemployment, inflation, poverty and illiteracy. Our resolve in this direction should be guided by the realization that, hunger, disease, insecurity etc. do not respect gender, generational, religious or ethnic boundaries”, he said
“Guarantee a free and fair elections, under the Constitution, where the will of the people prevail and through which credible candidates, with track records of performance, are elected to pull the country back from the brink and restore the confidence of the people in Government”.
He described as unfortunate the recent communal crisis that erupted in Gudun Hausawa community of Bauchi metropolis which led to the loss of lives and destruction of property, and called on the people to deepen the values of tolerance, love and peaceful co-existence and never take the relative peace citizens in the state enjoy or Allah’s mercies for granted.
The Governor noted with concern that despite the sustained effort of the state government to ensure peace and the security of lives and property, there still exist miscreants who are hell bent on causing confusion and disorder, and reiterated the state government’s resolve to deal decisively with the perpetrators of the mayhem.
He directed security agencies to dig into the remote and immediate causes of the Gudum incident to forestall a recurrence not only at Gudun Hausawa but across all the communities in the State, saying government cannot relent in its drive to ensure continuous peaceful coexistence among the heterogeneous ethnic and religious groups in the State.
Mohammed spoke of the need for people to spare a thought for men and women under arms who on a daily basis place themselves on the frontlines and in harm’s way to guarantee our peace, security and comfort, while remembering their families and loved ones who, together with their spouses, bear a greater burden of the terrifying times.
“We must add our fallen heroes who have paid the supreme price for our liberty and ensure that their labours will never be in vain. It is particularly for their sake, but also the suffering Nigerian masses that, as the 2023 general elections gathers momentum, urgent steps must be taken to achieve the following”.
Governor Bala reassured the people that government was mindful of the economic difficulties being experienced by the people of the state which, he aligned to as a national problem, saying the state government is doing everything possible to ameliorate the situation through various strategies.
Such strategies, he enumerated, included targeted people empowerment, massive infrastructural development, creation of an investment friendly environment and capacity building, adding “I urge you to see it as a temporary setback. Being a resilient people, I am confident that, by the grace of God, we will overcome the difficulty in no distant future”.
