President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday declared that no individual, group or persons or terrorist organisation could hold the nation to ransom. Jonathan spoke at the first Sunday service in 2014 which he attended at the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), Garki, Abuja.
He vowed to end insecurity and spate of killings in some parts of the North being perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect.
The president, who described the terrorist’s onslaught as ephemeral, assured that the country would soon be liberated from it.
Jonathan reiterated his administration’s commitment to working harder to ensure that “nobody or group of persons will be able to hold Nigeria to ransom’’.
The president said his administration was working hard to build a country that the future generation would be proud of.
“Boko Haram is temporary, Boko Haram will surely go. We will do all our best to end it. A number of countries have faced similar challenges and they have been able to overcome them. We will surely overcome Boko Haram.
“Life in the North must change, development must go to all parts of this country and nobody or group of people can hold this country to ransom.
“We will collectively liberate this country from the hands of any evil person that is trying to set us backward. We will do our best and build a country that our children and our grandchildren will be proud of,’’ he said.
Jonathan said his administration would work hard to improve the standard of living of Nigerians.
The president, who likened nation building to the planting of crops or the process of building a house, said that such development would not come overnight but through a process.
“Let me reassure you that we will continue to work harder and harder to improve the quality of lives of Nigerians. You cannot achieve this overnight. I always say that and sometimes I am always misquoted when I say we cannot achieve this overnight.
“Even if you go and plant a crop, it takes a period before you start seeing the fruits. I always tell people that if you have all the money in this world today to build a house and you want to build a simple two-storey building, it must still take some time to build,” he said.
The president noted that the heated political environment being experienced in the country in recent times was neither unusual not peculiar to Nigeria.
He said the USA, which is generally regarded as a great country, had same experience recently to a point of near shutting down.
Jonathan assured Nigerians that the perceived confusion notwithstanding, only the will of God will be done in the country.