Buhari charges new ambassadors to project Nigeria’s image

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday charged Nigeria’s new ambassadors to project the country as a great country and good investment destination, in their various places of assignment.

Buhari made the call during a virtual induction programme for ambassadors-designate, held at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency, Abuja.

Buhari reminded the diplomats, who would soon be posted to serve as the country’s representatives abroad, to exhibit exemplary conduct in their assignments.

“You have all been nominated and appoint after a rigorous selection process, with due consideration to your personal and professional qualities,” Buhari said.

“The primary responsibilities of Nigeria in the countries you are posted rests on you. I urge you to go out and serve with uttermost dedication and pride.

“You must not forget that you have been posted to respective bilateral and multilateral missions, to represent and project Nigeria as a great and indivisible nation and a very attractive investment destination.

“As Ambassadors of our country, your comportment, courage, conduct and ability to multi task must be exemplary. Humility and firmness are attributes that can earn you and your country respect and recognition. These attributes must remain with every one of you in fulfilment of your duties.”

President Buhari reminded the ambassadors of his administration’s nine priority areas of building a thriving and sustainable economy, poverty reduction, food security and fight against corruption among others, which will help attain sustainable development as well as guide its foreign policy objective.

He urged them to be guided by the priority goals as they represent Nigeria in foreign lands, adding that government expects them to also protect the interest of Nigerians residing in those countries.

“I therefore urge all of you to be guided by these identified priority goals as well as your various station chatters which highlight specific mandates and guidelines on government’s expectations. We expect you to fight hard for Nigeria and Nigerians abroad.

“You must strive to promote trade, human capacity development foreign direct investments and other areas of cooperation with countries at national and multilateral levels, to support our national growth and development,” he said.

President Buhari made reference to how COVID-19 has ravaged the world and the need to thread carefully and embrace the new norm.

“You all are Aware that for some time now, national and global resources have continued to shrink, a situation compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. One event, one virus, has changed the world order. Our world will never be the same again. But we will continue to innovate and cope with the new norm in order to contain the catastrophic consequences of this pandemic.

“The world must resolutely commit itself to global concerted actions to fight and defeat this common enemy together. Nigeria’s diplomacy must make specific contributions to common global challenges on how this health pandemic should be contained and eventually defeated,” he said.

President Buhari said traditional challenges of terrorism, violent extremism, climate change, poverty population explosion, cybercrimes, proliferation of arms and many others, which have negatively impacted Nigeria and other parts of Africa, remain part of our nation’s critical challenges.

“Our levels of diplomacy must help address bilaterally as well as multilaterally these continuing challenges. I implore all of you to pay due attention to all of these in order to register successes for our country and citizens as Nigeria engages the world,” he charged the new Ambassadors.

Furthermore urged them to leverage on their goodwill as the country’s principal representative abroad to help deliver prosperity to millions of Nigerians in the countries they find themselves.

“You are required to attend to all Nigerian citizens who come to our missions with utmost dignity, respect and promptness; providing necessary assistance with courtesy, commitment and efficiency,” he advised.

President Buhari had last month approved and directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to post 95 new Ambassadors, to serve in the country’s missions abroad. They are expected to resume their tour of duty at the end of their induction exercise.