The First Lady and wife of the President, Dame Patience Jona­than, has called on Nigerians to rise against all forms of threat to peace in the country, including the in­surgent group, Boko Haram.
Mrs. Jonathan made the call yesterday, in Ozuoba, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, where she flagged off the MDG’s Economic Empowerment and Conditional cash Transfer Programmes to 3, 650 house­holds across the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.
She commended Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDG’s, Mrs. Precious Gbeneol, for the resourceful way she has integrated women empowerment and gender equality issues in her time towards ensuring the attainment of the MDG’s.
She reaffirmed her commitment towards assisting the poor and less privileged in the society, and promised to continue doing so through her non-governmental organisation, Women for Change and Development Initia­tive, to boost the transformation agenda of the federal government.
She said the distribution of the empower­ment items and commodities to all com­munities in Rivers State was collaboration between the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDG’s and her NGO.
According to her: “This collaboration is meant to achieve improvement in the economic wellbeing of women and youths in our communities.
“I know the MGD’s conditional cash transfer scheme has impacted positively on over 100, 000 household from 2011 till date.
“Let me once again emphasise that with the help of God, through my NGO, I will continue to work to assist the less privileged and the poor. This disposition is in line with the principles of the administration of the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, which is centred on good governance and poverty eradication.”
Mrs. Jonathan reminded Nigerians that the Federal Government takes their welfare seriously and urged them to be good citizens and be peaceful at all times.
”I therefore, urge you to bear it in mind that the Federal Government has your inter­est at heart. While I strongly urge you to be good citizens, holding on to all what is good and praying always for the country and its leaders.
“We must all work hard to check all forms of threat to peace in Nigeria and insurgence widespread in parts of the country. We must strive at all times to work for the peace, unity and development of our country, Nigeria.
“We need peace to achieve development, not only in the Niger Delta region, but in the country as a whole. Peace is very crucial to development, because there can be no development where there is no peace.
“This must be sustained by ensuring that there is peace in our homes, peace in our communities, peace in our local govern­ments, peace in our states, and peace in our country, Nigeria. We must put in more efforts until we achieve total peace in Nigeria.”
 

We must resist insurgency, threat to peace –First Lady