Are you worried about the spate of insecurity in Nigeria?
Yes, I am because security is the most important aspect of our lives. It is only peace that leads to development.If you cannot have peace in a nation, there won’t be development. Right now, school children cannot go to school, market women cannot sell their wares, people who shuttle from one part of the country to another cannot do so now because of insecurity. In those days when armed robbery was the order of the day, whenever people want to travel, they think of what point they will be attacked before they reach their destination.
But now with bombing, suicide and all that, people are scared to even go to their place of worship. You can also see what the hardship it has brought to the north; people are afraid of attending naming ceremonies, weddings and important events that used to bind us together. I believe this is as a result of the failure of government and the security agencies to be proactive. We only have reactive security management; security should be able to apprehend this people before they strike.
All over the world, security is the most important responsibility of any government. In other countries, wherever we go, people are secured because government takes care of their security. In the UK you can travel from the north to the east and you will feel secured. It is the same thing in Germany, France and other nations.
So you agreed with the former NSA Assertion that the PDP-led government is to be blamed for this situation?
Azazi has already answered that.What I am identifying is mis-governance. They have failed to introduce people-oriented programs that will help the youths to get employment and the common man to get access to basic amenities and for business men to have friendly environment...
Are you saying that the Goodluck Jonathan administration has failed?
Yes, We have just given a directive to the government to implement 100% of the physical acts of this year before September. The implementation process is slow and we know that Nigerians are suffering and if it is not done now, we might not be able to implement this budget this year. So we want to force the executive to implement it through force release of funds to MDAs and other ministries as and at when due…
But some northern leaders are attributing the crises in the north to a plot to break the ranks of the north. Do you share such thoughts?
I do not entirely accept it. It is a combination of many things; it is a failure of the leaders of those particular states where these things are happening. Without mincing words, whether we like it or not, they are culprits because they have refused to get to the root of this insurgency, they have also refused to listen to good counsel. Social insecurity all over the world is caused by unemployment; once idle youths are strong enough to be engaging in unproductive activities, they tend to start indulging in vices. More so when they have people that will sponsor them to destabilized the system.
If the northern governors have developedagriculture, the potential in Agriculture can absorb everybody in the nation and food is the most important security in the world. The agricultural potential in the north has the capacity to feed the whole of West Africa. By doing that, employment will not be left in the hands of government alone because farmers too will employ people.
But here we have millions of youth who are jobless and are willing tools in the hands of wicked people. We need to go back to the basis which is agriculture. Look at the issue of Almajiri in the north.Parents cannot cater for their children, so they send them to go and do almajirinci.Most of them don’t go there to be educated; they go there to be able to eat.
Now that you are blaming northern governors; does it mean that they have no right to agitate for more resources because they have failed?
I will support them because as of today, the nation’s resources are coming from oil from a particular part of the country and they get more allocation at the expense of the other parts of the country. You can imagine a state receiving over sixty billion naira as its allocation while another is receiving less than two billion naira. The natural resources they are talking about was placed there by God, not an individual.They didn’t pay or canvass for it.Just like the north is blessed with fertile land for farming.
What we need to understand is that, this country belongs to all of us and we need to share the resources equally. What will happen if the oil dries up tomorrow? It is a natural mineral deposit and one day, it will dry up. Look at Lake Chad, it used to be the biggest in African but today, it is a shadow of its self through environment factors and the rest.
The same can happen to the oil. The north produces the crops; we have the meat and the rest, so we too should start claiming that, we must be given derivation?
But if agriculture is exploited and it starts to yield revenue, nobody will think of oil again because we can make more from agriculture.If government will empower farmers by equipping them and buying the produce from them, it will boost the economy of the north. It is the neglect of agriculture that is making the other part of the country see the north as a liability. We are not a liability and can never be one if government will boost our economy.
How would you assess the federal government effort to settle the issue of Almajiri?
Well, the Almajiri doesn’t need to be settled by the concept; it is a community development initiative.The community can do that; government is just trying to use the program to politicize the issue and create publicity from it. What we want is for them to empower the parents of these boys; the parents will handle their children better and will take care of them without having to send them to the Tsangaya School.
How many can they settle? Let’s say the Almajiri are up to five million, can government settle all of them? Just because they pick few does not mean they have solved the problem. Until now, the number of Almajiris has not dropped; they are still there, roaming the street begging.
Government should bring policies that will empower parents to be able to take care of their families.No parent will want to allow his/her child to be wayward or beggar. These children are being killed by ritualists; they are being abused by their guardians and most of them have disappeared without trace.
There have been moves by the federal government to re-introduce family planning ostensivbly to address the current population explosion. Would you support the bill when it gets to the House?
I will never support it and even before it comes, it is dead on arrival. No right thinking person in Nigeria will support family planning bill because the resources we have are enough to take care of us as a country. Even if Nigeria’s population is reduced to ten million, because of injustice and mis-governance, the resources will still not go round.
Our problem is not about population.Nobody should deceive us and we are not over populated. Most of the developing countries today are over populated. Look at China which has a population of over one point, one billion and yet they are becoming a super power.
All theories of development have been advocated for human development.There is nowhere human development is considered as negativity. There are some countries that are encouraging people to go and become their national so they can increase their population. Till date, we are being underutilized.If we can use 30% of our population to work on the farms, the scarcity of food in this country will be history.
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