At Argungu Fishing Pageant, Tinubu Vows To Crush Bandits And Terrorists
President Bola Tinubu has once more vowed to defeat all types of banditry and insurgency throughout the nation.
The president, who reiterated his authorities’s dedication to combat insecurity, spoke on Saturday on the Worldwide Fishing and Cultural Pageant in Argungu, Kebbi State.
“I guarantee you that the combat in opposition to insecurity of any variety, together with banditry and insurgency, might be received,” he mentioned.
Tinubu described the 61st Argungu Worldwide Fishing and Cultural Pageant as a testomony to the return of stability and normalcy in Kebbi State and throughout the nation.
The president additionally pledged the federal authorities’s sustained help for tourism, agriculture, meals safety, and rural growth.
He counseled the state authorities for efficiently organising the historic cultural occasion, which attracted over 50,000 fishermen from throughout Nigeria and neighbouring nations.
The four-day pageant featured cultural shows, water competitions, conventional boxing, and dancing.
Tinubu mentioned: “Congratulations. Effectively completed; superb present; exceptional historical past. This pageant has endured for 83 years and stands as a robust image of unity, resilience, and peaceable coexistence amongst our individuals”.
He lauded the safety preparations that enabled the pageant to be hosted safely and efficiently.
The organisation, safety association, and inner outlook of the occasion exhibit what is feasible when management is purposeful and inclusive. Thanks, Mr. Governor of Kebbi State. You’re a workforce chief, and you might be demonstrating it.
”A socio-cultural occasion like this will solely thrive and change into a tourism attraction the place the safety ambiance is conducive,” Tinubu added.
The president additional said: “I’m happy to notice that important progress has been made in combating insecurity throughout Kebbi and different components of our nation. We’re nonetheless working very laborious by means of coordinated efforts between the federal authorities, state authorities, and safety businesses. We now have women and men in uniform who’re placing their lives on the road to safeguard our sovereignty and keep our peace.
“The relative peace we’re witnessing right now on this area will not be unintended. It’s the results of sustained funding in safety, intelligence gathering, and group engagement.
Our farmers, together with the fishermen, merchants, and households, will be capable to go about their lives with out concern or harm. This pageant is a testomony to the return of stability and normalcy.
We’ll proceed to help it and encourage it. Our conventional leaders, significantly the custodians of this pageant, stay on the coronary heart of our nationwide agenda. We’re intentionally investing in applications that empower youth, girls, and rural communities.”
Highlighting the federal authorities’s dedication to agriculture, Tinubu reaffirmed help for farmers, fishermen, and rural communities.
”Working collectively with the state authorities, we are going to proceed to present our farmers the required help. Kebbi State is recognised for its dedication to meals safety and agricultural production. We’ll work collectively to make it an excellent {economic} success,” he added.
The president additionally emphasised the unifying energy of tradition, noting: “The Argungu Worldwide Fishing Pageant brings collectively individuals of various backgrounds, nations, and beliefs within the spirit of friendship and wholesome competitors. It showcases our heritage and tasks Nigeria in a constructive mild to the remainder of the world. I commend the organisers, and I reaffirm my dedication to peace, empowerment, meals safety, and infrastructural growth of the Federation.”
Earlier in his speech, Emir of Argungu, Sama’ila Muhammad Mera, expressed delight that the traditional waters of Matan Fada, the grand fishing area, as soon as once more witnessed the normal gunshot after practically six years of a hiatus.
”For 61 editions this pageant has endured not merely as a contest however as a testomony to the capability of our individuals to decide on braveness over battle and friendship over feud,” the Emir mentioned.
”Your presence right here, Mr. President, will not be an unusual honour. It’s a profound identification with these core values: Braveness, reconciliation, peace, and friendship. These are the values that information nationwide cohesion, good governance, and progress, that are pillars of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope agenda.”
He praised the president’s initiatives, saying: ”We see this agenda made manifest within the scholar mortgage fund programme, provision of major healthcare, and increasing entry to life-saving vaccines for our kids.
We be aware with immense delight your management in retraining well being staff, efforts which have rightly earned you the place of African Union Champion in Neighborhood Well being.
”In public works, your imaginative and prescient is unmistakable. The coastal freeway and Ilela-Badagry freeway, which Kebbi State stands as a single largest beneficiary, usually are not mere roads; they’re arteries of prosperity connecting our rural farmers with the surface world.”
Asserting the outcomes of the fishing competitors, the Deputy Governor of Kebbi State, Senator Umar Abubakar Tafida, mentioned that Abubakar Usman from Maiyama Native Authorities Space emerged general winner with a 59kg catch and acquired N1million and two brand-new automobiles.
Abdullahi Garba from Argungu positioned second with a 40kg fish.
The state authorities awarded him N750,000, a brand-new automobile, and a Hajj seat.
The third place was collectively claimed by two contestants from Jigawa and Kogi states with a 33kg catch.
They acquired N1 million and a bike every.
All 4 profitable fish had been introduced to President Tinubu as a memento.
Earlier than attending the Argungu pageant, the President inaugurated key infrastructure tasks in Birnin Kebbi, together with the Bola Tinubu Secretariat Complicated, New Fashionable Motor Park, a three-lane twin carriageway, Kauran Gwandu Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery Sciences, Ambursa, and the brand new dualised Previous Argungu By-Go Street.
Earlier in his remarks, Governor Nasir Idris thanked the President for honouring the state together with his presence. He reaffirmed the state authorities’s dedication to sustaining the pageant as a platform for cultural preservation, tourism growth, and {economic} empowerment.
Deji Elumoye
Times Nigeria