World Trade Organization Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has criticized Nigerian politicians for using the security situation as a weapon to undermine President Bola Tinubu’s administration and governors across the country.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who served as Minister of Finance under former President Goodluck Jonathan, said this at the opening of the 2024 Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association held at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos on Sunday.
“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,” the ex-finance minister stated. “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 loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians.”
“This has to stop,” the WTO chief added.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala also noted that Nigeria’s socio-economic progress is being hindered by the ongoing security crisis, stressing the need to combat the theft of national wealth through advanced technology.
She said, “We cannot have socio-economic development without security” and the “theft of national assets must be stopped, deploying technology,”
The former minister stressed that “all Nigerians must agree that stealing of our national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped” and that there “is so much technology available now to track such theft, and there must be no more excuses for inaction.”
