President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday said that his administration will “continue to give dedicated, committed, focused and purposeful leadership towards overcoming old and emerging challenges before the nation.”
In a Message to mark this year’s Sallah celebration, the president urged Nigerians to “seize the opportunity of the Sallah season and the public holidays to reflect on how we can bring the ideals and virtues of our religious beliefs to bear on the positive resolution of the many challenges facing us as a nation.
“Nigerians remain a people of great faith with the vast majority of our people professing belief in God either as Muslims or Christians.
“There can be no doubt that we will make faster progress towards the attainment of developmental objectives as a nation if we all resolve to do more to live up to the highest ideals of our religious beliefs including the fear of God, willingness to make personal sacrifices for the collective good, selfless service, respect for laws and constituted authorities, honesty, justice, equity, fairness, dutifulness, peace and harmonious co-existence with others,” he said.
Speaking on the challenge faced by some Muslim Pilgrims in the Holy land, Mr Jonathan said though “the problem was eventually resolved with the positive intervention of the Federal Government, I have ordered a thorough post mortem of the incident with a view to ensuring that our Hajj airlift operations are never disrupted by such problems in future and that no Nigerian pilgrim is ever subjected to such traumatic experience in the Holy Land again”.
He expressed the commitment of his administration to give dedicated, committed, focused and purposeful leadership towards overcoming old and emerging challenges before the nation.
He enjoined all Muslims to remember the plight of the many thousands of Nigerians who have been displaced by the floods which recently devastated many communities across the nation and resolve to contribute whatever we can to ameliorate their suffering.
“In the true spirit of our major religions which enjoin us to be generous to the needy, I urge all Nigerians who can do so, to donate magnificently to the national relief fund for affected persons and communities” he said.
He promised that his administration will monitor the disbursement and utilization of the funds released by the Federal Government and those raised by the National Committee very closely to ensure that they are judiciously and expeditiously expended for the benefit of the flood victims.
