Director General of the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps, Rt. Hon. Yusuf Buba Yakub has reiterated the call for the youth of the nation to embrace dialogue as against the plan for a nationwide protest scheduled to start from August 1.
Buba noted that President Bola Tinubu has in just one year in office made such copious achievements in many areas of our national life that his Administration deserves not only understanding, but tacit support from all Nigerians in order to bring home the targeted results .
The TAC boss, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, Monday, during the deployment of 17 Technical Aid Corps Volunteers to Guinea Bissau, described President Tinubu as a man with listening ears, who during his swearing-in ceremony as President hit the ground running by taking some necessary, but challenging decisions, including the removal of subsidy on petroleum products and the eventual floating of the Naira against other currencies. These, he said, were aimed at plugging the loopholes being exploited by a few rich Nigerians. He added that President Tinubu, by so doing, saved Nigeria over N6 trillion on subsidy removal alone.
“We acknowledge that it is the right of every Nigerian to protest, but, how do you protest when you are being heard? You only protest if the Government is not listening or doing anything about your problems. But in the case of the state of the nation today, we know we have a President that has a listening ear. He has in the past one year continued to deal with the issues that are being raised. He saved our country a whopping N6 trillion. He created the Ministry of Livestock to check farmer/herder crisis, kidnapping and mitigate insecurity. The minimum wage bill has just been signed into law. He brought the scholarship scheme for our youth and has also made available palliatives to the States. There is so much that he is doing to achieve the nation of our dreams.
“So, despite what we may be seeing as current challenges today, we are headed for a great future as a nation. I, therefore, appeal to especially our youths and all those supporting the idea of this protest to give the Government a chance. Ideally, there may not be any problems with protests, but the fear is that miscreants may likely hijack a well-intentioned exercise, as we saw in the past, and before you know it, there will be burning of properties and looting everywhere and even loss of lives. These are the reasons we appeal that we should come to the table with the Government,” Buba stressed.
Earlier, the former federal lawmaker, while admonishing the Guinea Bissau-bound Volunteers to contribute to the greatness of Nigeria by their actions and activities in their host country, Buba said the Federal Government considers the Scheme a very important one in its relationship with the recipient nations in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific and had, therefore, put in place all necessary arrangements to make the 24-month Voluntary service a hitch-free one for them. He called on the 17 medical professionals to respect the laws of their host country, saying that the 37-year-old Scheme has been a major promoter of Nigeria’a foreign policy objectives, which has brought enormous pride to the nation these past years.
While thanking the Federal Government for finding them worthy of participating in the highly competitive Scheme, some of the Volunteers, among whom was the Team Lead, Dr.Mansur Aliyu Ramanan, a General Practitioner in Medicine, lauded the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps for its commitment to upholding the vision of the nation through the TAC Scheme. Others who spoke, including Mr.Mannasah Michael and Ms Abai Edidiong Michael, both of whom are practitioners in various fields of Nursing, said they were committed to giving their best in the service of humanity for the promotion of Nigeria’s image abroad.
Among those present at the colourful event were the Director of Programmes at TAC, Amb. Zakari Usman; the Resource Person at the orientation exercise and former Director of Programmes at the Agency, Amb. Mohammed Kangiwa; Mrs Rahila Ayuba Kaura, Acting Director in-charge of the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit as well as the Special Assistant to the DG on Protocol Matters, Lawandy Bala, among others.
