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From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
As Nigerians await the transition to a newly elected president come May 29, 2023, a Catholic Priest of the Makurdi Diocese, Rev. Fr. Remigius Ihyula, has listed security issue as one of the major challenges the incoming President must address to fix the country.
Ihyula who stated this while speaking to our correspondent in Makurdi, the Benue Capital, also urged the incoming President to strengthen the economy by influencing foreign or home grown investments and as well address the polarized nature of the country.
According to him, Nigeria has many educated youths who are unemployed as there is need to engage them meaningfully.
While noting that there are huge security challenges in Nigeria, the Catholic priest said, “I would expect that the President will address these issues.
“There are issues of economy. In fact, we don’t have anything that resembles an economy. For a country the size of Nigeria, we should have a focused economy and focused people leading this economy.
“Related to that, we have so many youths who are out of school and are not employed. So the president must tackle these issues, secured the country, boost the economy, influence foreign investment or home grown investment.
“There is problem in food, We should, in Benue state, for instance, and in other states that are agrarian, we should be encouraged to go to the farm so that Nigerians can have food to buy and cheap too.”
Rev Ihyula who is the Coordinator for the Foundation for Justice, Development and Peace,(FJDP), a faith based Organization under the Makurdi Diocese, also pointed out that the country in the last eight years, was bedeviled with tribal and religious bickerings and called on the incoming President to curtail the menace.
“I also think that Nigeria, in the last eight years, was so polarized along religious grounds, along tribal grounds. We were ruled by a president who said his tribe was better than any other tribe and his religion is better than other religions.
“The next president must do things to fix these excesses. Nigerians should not be discriminated against and nobody should feel that because he or she is from a certain section of the country, he is better than the others.”
