Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna State on Friday urged the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies to use their expertise in finding solutions to banditry in the country.
The governor, who received members of the association in Kaduna, urged them to make recommendations to the Federal Government for a holistic action to tackle the problem.
“Step into this and bring all your experience to guide the government as to what to do to solve these problems as the National Institute is the most prestigious public policy institute in the country,” he said.
On his administration, El-Rufai said that he dedicated his first tenure to improving human capital and now focused on infrastructure development and opening up the state more for business investments and job creation.
According to him, in the first quarter of the year, Kaduna state attracted investment far ahead of Lagos.
“We have expanded health care system, education, social development, and Kaduna have lowest of out of school children in the northwest.”
While appreciating the NIPSS Alumni for the visit, El-Rufai reiterated that he has done all he can to deliver social services to the people and bridge the infrastructural deficit in the state.
“Kaduna state is an old state which all successive governments inherited all the basic structure of governance from the hotel, airport, secretariat and many more that made successive governments more relaxed
“But newer states that had to start from scratch came to overtake Kaduna state in terms of infrastructural development because they had to build their universities, polytechnics, hotels and so on,” he noted.
According to him, one of the key challenges of his administration was to upgrade infrastructure in Kaduna, the state capital, which is a home for all.
Earlier, President of the NIPSS Alumni, MD Abubakar, said the visit was to commiserate with the government on the needless deaths of so many citizens as a result of banditry and ethno-religious conflicts.
“I said needless deaths because some of the issues that were the remote and immediate causes of this ugly situation could have been averted if Nigerians as a whole had fully imbibed the culture of dialogue in conflict resolution and appreciate the benefits of peaceful coexistence,” Abubakar said.
He called on every patriotic Nigerian to support the Federal and State Governments, as well as the security forces to
eradicate all such unwholesome activities in our country.
“As AANI, we are in full support of your peace and security efforts which we believe will yield results, ” he said.
The group expressed its commitment to the peace and development of Kaduna State and Nigeria in general, and
appealed to all Nigerians and the media to be more cautious in reporting national security issues.
“We also wish to emphatically state that AANI supports governor El-rufai’s efforts in repositioning public schools in Kaduna State, ” he added.