The Nigeria Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has lamented that 110 million Nigerians who he said are extremely poor, are the easy prey for recruitment by violent extremists, including members of Boko Haram.
“We (in Nigeria) have 110 million extremely poor and at the bottom of human development indices. Most cannot and do not interrogate the alternatives offered by contesting parties beyond narrow prisms of ethnicity, and religion.
“The disaffected millions who are largely illiterates and without a real stake in the security of the polity represent a reserve for recruitment into violent extremism.”
Vice President Osinbajo spoke today in a keynote address he delivered at the Dialogue on Democracy, Sustainable Development and Countering Terrorism’ at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja.
Professor Osinbajo stressed the need for what he called a paradigm shift in socio-economic planning and development using the bottom-up socio-economic planning model towards strengthening the nation’s democracy and build a transparent and inclusive society.
According to him violent extremism is not entirely a product of socio-economic exclusion, but a function of permitting religious and radically ethno-centric pedagogy without a persuasive enough counter-narrative.
“Ï think a paradigm shift might be required; bottom-up economic and social planning, budget and planning that are driven by the poverty and unemployment numbers.”
Professor Osinbajo made it clear that government has a role to play in the determination of socio-economic inclusion by enabling a market driven economy and providing social safety nets through direct interventions directly in some cases even as he emphasized that a proactive approach to combating extremism among the vast millions of the poor and vulnerable citizens might be needful in addition to the socio-economic inclusiveness approach by offering a counter-narrative to the subsisting terrorist propaganda.
“While market must be self propelled, Government must set the safety floor and intervene directly in some cases in providing jobs and opportunities. I think we must also offer an alternative narrative to the one of extremism and violence.”
He said that the counter-narrative approach to combating terrorism based on religion is not enough to counter religious views, suggesting that governments must seek progressive allies in such religion to achieve the objective of the narrative.
On climate change, the Vice President who identified the unmitigated consumption pattern as responsible for the challenges associated with climate change expressed the support of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to the fundamental objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the recent Addis Ababa Action Agenda.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon in whose presence the dialogue held has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his commitment to social inclusiveness, emphasizing that government must respect human rights and dignity of its citizens. He added that the vulnerable must be included in governance.
He said that the problems of insecurity and climate change cannot be tackled by any single country, saying: “every hand should be on deck.”
Mr. Moon used the opportunity to praise Nigeria’s leadership roles in Africa and the world in the area of peace keeping and on other global issues.
The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar who spoke at the occasion informed the gathering of efforts being made by traditional and religious leaders in the country to tackle the problem of extremism and called on the UN Secretary-General to help Nigeria to recover and return her stolen fund back to the country.
In his own remarks at the occasion, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onayeikan reiterated the position of the Pope on the issue of climate change and called for concerted actions to redress the situation. [myad]
