The New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) has urged Muslims to use the occasion of this year Eid-el-Fitr to pray to God to guide Nigeria as it moves towards the 2023 general elections.

The party, in a statement by its spokesman, Agbo Major, on Sunday in Abuja, felicitated Muslims in the country on the occasion of the 2023 Eid-el-Fitri festival marking the successful conclusion of the Ramadan fasting.

He said no doubt that Muslims, who participated in the month-long fasting attracted to themselves the blessings, forgiveness, mercy, love, joy and preservation of Allah associated with the month.

“It is obvious that our Muslim compatriots used the occasion to pray for peace, unity, love, tolerance and prosperity of the nation,” the statement said. “The state of the nation needs the collective prayers, perseverance and patriotism of all Nigerians to redirect the ship of the nation from its perilous course to the path of rectitude, progress, development and advancement as we march towards the crucial 2023 general elections.”

The party also saluted the nation’s work force as workers celebrated this year’s May Day, describing them as dynamic, vibrant, progressive and patriotic.

He said the NNPP identified with workers in the collective efforts at building a strong, virile, progressive, prosperous and decent democratic society.

“The great Nigerian workers are the best in Africa and among the best in the world. They are the pride of the nation whose exceptional resilience, patriotism, intellectual ability, managerial acumen, tenacity and sagacity of purpose have fostered unity and stabilised the polity,” the NNPP’s statement added. “The Nigerian workers demonstrated their love for the fatherland in the struggle for independence where they resisted the British colonial masters through calculated industrial actions.”

It said they opposed “obnoxious military decrees and actions that undermined the wellbeing of Nigerian people and unity of the nation which ushered the democratic freedom the citizenry enjoys today.”

It said it was time to protect and reward Nigerian workers.

“Civil servants work so hard, earn so little and owed so much. Enough of this oppression of fellow compatriots,” stressed the party.

(NAN)