The Nigeria Ambassador to Jordan, Faruk Yabo has charged Nigerians to be more tolerant with each other and shun partisanship.
He also appeals to Nigerians to continue to be patriotic, foster unity and peaceful co-existence in the country.
The Envoy, who gave the charge during an interview in Jordan on Saturday, 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 country.
“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 ethics and Nigeria can achieve this, if they embrace each other.
“Most of our problems are not deeply rooted. It is sometime partisanship that is used to amplify it, this is how some of these issues are translated into blood shed.
“This is unacceptable and this is what President Muhammadu Buhari is doing to tackle it.
“I am sure since our democracy is active sooner or later we will over come all this 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.
“Nigerians in Jordan are doing incredibly well, we have few consular issues, most of them are working with international organizations, 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.
Yabo however urged Nigerians to stop 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.
“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 is any issue, you attribute it to the total failure of government.
“Failure normally come over time, it doesn’t just happen over night. when a system gradually fails, it takes a lot of time to fix it.
“The second element is the kidnapping, in terms of 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 got money, but with our banking reforms it made Nigerians to embrace our cashless system, so the terrorists and criminals also adopted a new system.
“They believe if you are not carrying money, you should be carrying an ATM card, when they kidnap you, 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 stressed that Nigeria has strong diplomatic ties with the Jordanian government in the areas of tourism, technology and agriculture.
He noted that Nigeria was working on how to establish medical tourism with the Jordanian government, to pave way for Nigerians, through the Embassy, to come for medical tourism.
“I will essentially say one thing leads to the other, Jordan and Nigeria have a very strong relationship and very strong corporation.
“The significance of the relationship between Nigeria and Jordan cannot be under estimated.
“President Muhammadu Buhari had visited Jordan in 2017 and came back in 2019 and had positive engagements with His Majesty. We have strong educational engagement and recently, the religious tourism.
“We are looking at partnership in terms of technology. I mentioned that earlier, the Executive Vice Chairman for Science and Engineering and Infrastructure visited Jordan and he visited a number of agencies.
“As a result of that, we have seen where Nigeria is interested and we are comparing notes to see where we can collaborate more.
“We have also visited a Private university with the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Christian Pilgrim Commission, NCPC and we saw how private universities compliment public universities,” he said.
