The pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to recruit more policemen from the 774 Local Government Areas in order to improve security.
A delegation of the group led by Sen. Ayo Fasanmi, visited Buhari on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents after the meeting, Sen. Bola Tinubu, who was a part of the delegation, said that the essence of the meeting was to thank the President and congratulate him on the election victory.
Tinubu, who is the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that urgent steps were needed to stem the tide of hate speech, disharmony and various security issues in the country.
“The first step on the security of the country is to really see a way to stem any speech of hate; intolerance across the nation and look at the problem of security holistically and from the grassroots level.
“This includes the fact there is a shortage of police personnel and there is the need to look at the recruitment from 774 Local Governments and be able to effectively have information.
“It takes time to train people; you equally create employment from such an action; I mean employment for the people and strengthen security intelligence from the grassroots.’’
He said the Next Level-second term slogan of the APC was broad and comprised economy, security, infrastructure among others.
Tinubu said that APC, as a party, was working for economic progress and economic diversity.
“We have the various scale of thinking that the economic council will have to bring about; the infrastructural deficit; poverty, security; those are the things that we will put emphasis on.
`You know it; I know it; there is infrastructural deficit across the country and without infrastructure, you cannot galvanise the economy; you have the question of electricity that is critical to industrialisation and economic growth.
“No matter what, we have nothing but one country and that is the only way that we can stimulate growth and understanding among various nationalities; it is not by division; it is not be promoting religious conflict; religious differences.
“Nobody has control when they were born; what they will be; how they will be raised and how their fate will affect their lives and we must remove that from our political setting; set it aside, move the nation and concentrate on trust and development,’’ he said.
Tinubu said that Nigerians should eschew sectional sentiments and focus on nation building for prosperity. (NAN)