The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa, has called on all Nigerians to have love for and confidence in Nigeria and fight together for its peace and progress.

Musa made the appeal on Monday when he visited ailing personnel at the Defence Headquarters Hospital, Abuja, to mark Christmas and his birthday.

He urged all to exhibit love for the country, adding that running away is not a solution.

“We must stay and fight whatever challenge is.

“Those countries they are running to stood back and fought and got to where they are.

“If they had ran away, they would not have achieved that for them to go and meet them.”

The CDS also called on Nigerians to take ownership of the challenges facing the country, adding that the security challenge is not an armed forces challenge or police or that of any individual .

According to him, it is a collective effort for Nigeria and all Nigerians should put hands together.

“We cannot do it alone. We need the support of everyone. When you see something, say something, report as quickly as possible so that measures can be put in place adequately.

“We will continue to seek for support of members of the public to take ownership of our challenges.

“Nigeria is our own. If Nigeria succeeds, we all succeed, if Nigeria fails we all fail and we don’t want Nigeria to fail.

“So I call on all Nigerians to give us all the support,” he added.

Musa said the visit to the hospital was in tune with his leadership concept, which is people-centric.

He said that the outreach was to ensure that people, both the security agents and the citizens, felt the impact of love being shared especially their healthcare.

According to him, it is always good at this period of celebration to come around and see how those ones that are in hospital who don’t have the ability to celebrate, how they are doing and to wish them well.

“It is for them to always know that we are always with them, we are praying with them and we want them to recover so that they can come back fully to life.

“We will continue to do that as we have been doing. So this is just not a one off thing, it is something we do regularly,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CDS donated hampers and cash gifts to all the patients in the hospital during the visit.

On arrival at the hospital wards, patients were heard singing birthday song for the CDS, who later shared some words of encouragement with them before making the donations to them individually from bed to bed.