From Gyang Bere

Nigeria’s Ambassador to Jordan Farouk Yabo has charged Nigerians to be more tolerant with each other and exhibits patriotism to foster unity and peaceful co-existence in the country.

Yabo, who gave the charge during an interview with Sunday Sun Newspaper, blamed the current challenges in Nigeria on partisanship.

He noted that with tolerance and patriotism, Nigeria will certainly come out of the current security, economic and political challenges facing the nation.

‘With tolerance, you can achieve a lot. Tolerance among the people of Jordan is a model to emulate, it is a nation that does not define you by religion or ethnicity and Nigeria can achieve this if we embrace each other,’ the ambassador stated.

‘Most of our problems are not deeply rooted. It is sometimes partisanship that is used to amplify it, this is how some of these issues are translated into blood shade, this is unacceptable and this is what President Muhammadu Buhari is tackling.

‘I am sure since our democracy is active sooner or later we will overcome all these challenges. In all these, the significance of prayer cannot be ignored,

‘When you have people in thousands coming from a country that is seeking peaceful coexistence, that will help and we will begin to build ourselves for good.

‘Nigerians in Jordan are doing incredibly well, we have few consular issues, most of them are working with international organisations, we have students studying in different universities.

‘The Embassy has established direct mobile links with Nigerians, to help them call or reach the embassy when they are in distress,’ he said.

Yabo urged Nigerians to eschew partisanship and join hands with the present government in power, to move the country forward.

He explained that during the 911 attack in the United States, every politician in the States, shielded their political interests to fight for the common good of America.

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‘In Nigeria, sometimes we have people who have just lost an election, their ideas can help a lot more, but it is not fair when there are any issues, you attribute it to the total failure of government.

‘Failure normally comes over time, it doesn’t just happen overnight; when the system gradually fails, it takes a lot of time to fix it.

‘The second element is the kidnapping, in terms of the cashless system, Nigeria has done very well in terms of reforming the banking system.

‘In those days, when Armed robbers stop a commercial vehicle, they usually get money but with our banking reforms, it made Nigerians embrace our cashless system so the terrorists and criminals also adopted another means.

‘They believe if you are not carrying money, you should be carrying ATM Card when they kidnap, they pressure you and your loved ones to pay.

‘When people started responding to them with the anxiety to get their loved ones back, they made it a commercial venture. But I think with the amount of security strategy that is being deployed, we will get over it,’ he said.

Yabo also said Nigeria has strong diplomatic ties with the Jordanian government in the area of tourism, technology and agriculture.

He noted that the country is working on how to established medical tourism with the Jordanian government to enable Nigerians to visit the country also for medical tourism.

‘I will say that one thing leads to another; Jordan and Nigeria has a very strong relationship and corporation. The significance of the relationship between Nigeria and Jordan cannot be underestimated.

‘The president visited Jordan in 2017 and came back in 2019 where they had positive engagement with the Jordanian government. We had strong educational engagement and recently, religious tourism.’

He noted that Nigeria is also working to establish a partnership in the area of technology which informed the visit of the Executive Vice Chairman for Science and Engineering and Infrastructure to Jordan where he visited a number of agencies.