Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, has stated that politicians use the nation’s insecurity as a political and self-serving tool.
Speaking on Sunday at the Nigerian Bar Association’s 2024 Annual General Conference opening ceremony in Lagos State, Okonjo-Iweala claimed that political decisions had brought the country to its current state.
The former finance minister claimed that without sufficient security, there could be no development in the nation during her keynote speech, “A Social Contract for Nigeria’s Future.”
“Socio-economic development is impossible without security,” she stated.
“We certainly cannot have security without development. We all know that security has been weaponized in our country for political purposes by political actors, leading partly to the situation we have now.
“We have politicians who believe that the best way to make their opponents look bad is to instigate insecurity, making it look like they can’t govern, regardless of whether this leads to the loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians. This has to stop.”
The former minister continued, saying that the nation’s growing foreign reserves had been impacted by the widespread theft of crude oil.
She said there should be no excuses not to track down the perpetrators of crude oil theft because technological advancements have made it possible to do so and hold them accountable.
According to her, the safety of national assets is a second facet of security. Nigerians have witnessed firsthand for years how massive, organized crude oil theft gravely jeopardizes the nation’s financial and economic stability.
“All Nigerians must agree that stealing of our national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped.”
“There is so much technology available now to track such theft, and there must be no more excuses for inaction.”
