The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives has congratulated Nigerians for crossing over into Year 2021, urging them to face the year with greater optimism and faith despite the sour experiences of the last year.
The Minority Caucus, in a New year message signed by the Minority Leader, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu (PDP Delta), noted that the New Year comes with new prospects, visions and opportunities that must be exploited by the collaborative effort of all.
“The New Year must be embraced by all Nigerians, particularly our leaders at all levels, as a fresh opening to renew our commitment towards our nation and reinvent ourselves on the lines of truth, transparency, tolerance, fairness and unity of purpose.
“We must strive not to carry over into the New Year, all divisive tendencies of the past as well as the series of governance failures that brought hardship and fuelled acts of violence in our land.
“All those in leadership positions must therefore face the New Year with new commitment to get it right for our people. We must eschew all forms of corruption, nepotism, vindictiveness, incompetence and mediocrity and take strong steps to bring happiness to our people”, Elumelu stated.
The caucus stressed that such informed the vigour and intensity of its legislative activities in 2020 and pledged to intensify all statutory activities especially, legislative oversight to ensure prompt execution of projects that have direct bearing on the welfare of the people.
“As the representatives of the people, our caucus has resolved to intensify our oversight activities and monitoring of 2021 budget performance to ensure that all projects and programmes that have direct bearing on the welfare of the people, particularly our youths and the economically vulnerable are promptly executed”, Elumelu stated.
In that regard, the Minority Leader charged government at all ties to give more attention to youth development, education, health care, food security programmes, economic empowerment through job creation and support to hard working entrepreneurs.
The caucus however entreated those behind the acts of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other forms of violence in the country, to use the New Year as a turning point to retrace their steps while urging all Nigerians to remain vigilant.
The lawmakers also reminded Nigerians to continue to adhere to all COVID-19 protocols so as to check the spread of the virus in the country while praying for the nation and wishing Nigerians a happy New Year.