The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that his Ministry would continue to collaborate with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government to ensure internal security in the country.
Aregbesola made the pledge today in his office in Abuja when he was presented with the Nigeria and Africa Development Indicators Monitoring (NADIM) Foundation 2018 outstanding leadership awards.
According to him, security of Nigeria is one of the major cardinal policy thrust of the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration and the mandate of the Ministry of Interior is to drive this policy by ensuring the protection of lives and property of Nigerians and citizenship integrity.
The Minister assured that he would bring his wealth of experience over the years as a Governor of the State of Osun to bear which includes his policies and initiatives that led to his getting nine NADIM 2018 outstanding awards into the Ministry of Interior through the provision of purposeful leadership and political will so as to ensure that the mandate of the ministry is achieved.
“I will not renege on the promise I made when I assumed duty in the Ministry in August 2019 that I will provide necessary leadership to the Ministry of Interior and its agencies in a way that would ensure the safety of all Nigerians,” Aregbesola said.
He therefore restated the determination of the Ministry to work in synergy with all relevant stakeholders in the security sector so as to return Nigeria to a safe and secure nation in order to move the country to the next level of socio-economic development.
The prestigious NADIM 2018 outstanding leadership awards presented to the minister was in recognition of his achievements during his tenure as the Governor of the State of Osun.
He was given nine awards for being first Overall Best State Development in Nigeria, Second Best State in percentage of births delivered in health facilities, third best State in percentage of women employed, among other awards.
The minister recalled that while he was Governor of the State of Osun, he empowered women to be self employed by granting them interest free loans, as well as youth empowerment to promote security in the State.
He thanked NADIM for the selfless task of the findings that led to the awards, and equally thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for the opportunity to serve.
Speaking earlier, Founder of NADIM, Professor Taofeek Ibrahim, while presenting the awards to the minister, said they came up with the idea on the need to assess developmental achievements of people in leadership in Nigeria and Africa.
According to him, the achievements of Aregebsola as Governor of State of Osun between 2010 and 2018 which were critically analysed based on academic research, findings and evaluation earned him the honour.
Ibrahim said the report of NADIM’s analysis and awards were presented to the public at the Yar’Adua Center, in Abuja on 22nd January, 2019.
“It took us more than three years of rigorous research and scrutiny to come up with these findings, hence, the length of the time before publishing our figures in 2018. We also obtained data from reports of the World Bank, World Health Organisation, Transparency International and Social Progress Imperatives for the comparison of African Countries,” he said.
Ibrahim said further that, NADIM foundation was born out of the need to address the Developmental Gaps arising from the key findings of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.
He said the findings were carried out by the Federal Government through the National Population Commission “and further analysed in our book tilted, Development Performance Ranking of Nigerian States and Monitoring of African Countries.”
SIGNED
Mohammed Manga
Director (Press & Public Relations)
For: Honourable Minister
