The Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali, on Thursday urged Nigerians to work out local solutions to the challenges confronting the Nation.
Ali said this when he visited the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) headquarters in Abuja.
According to the Customs chief, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that we must have a nation to survive.
“The globalisation that came into being several years back didn’t seem to be a successful way of surviving, so, every country must be able to create and innovate its own ways of surviving.
“In fact, there was a time we were forced to close our borders. So if we didn’t have what it takes to survive as one, it would have been terrible.
“In a nutshell, time has come that we must work to make Nigeria better. Other nations that are great today that we point at have gone through thick and thin to get to where they are.
“They have toiled to get to where they are and I think that is what we need to do that is fundamental. I am saying this as my personal opinion, we must look inwards to create our own and begin to appreciate our own,’’ Ali said.
He said that Nigeria must leverage the strength in its diversity to make things better.
“We are inter-connected and if God did not want us to be under the same umbrella he would not have created Nigeria but today he created Nigeria with different tribes. We are here, so we can’t begin to say at this time we are parting ways,’’ Ali said.
Earlier, the Managing Director of NAN, Mr Buki Ponle, commended the NCS under the leadership of Ali for zero tolerance for corruption.
According to Ponle, Ali began the anti-corruption crusade a long time ago.
“And if few people like him still exist in the country, Nigeria has hope for survival and I believe there are many more like that.
“He has led the way and I pray that his torch continues to shine. With you among us, we have great hope for Nigerians.
“We need more people like you to make Nigeria greater than it is now and to lead us to the promise land and I believe that it will happen in our time,’’ Ponle said.
Discussion about this post