The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has blamed the Nigerian elites for the arms procurement scandal that has rocked the country, starting from the past administration. According to his verdict: “the elites have so far failed the nation.”
Vice President Osinbajo spoke today while delivering a paper at the National Defence College, Abuja, for Course 24 participants titled `”The Economic Dimensions of National Security: The Nigerian Experience.”
He regretted that the grand corruption, rent-seeking, promotion of ethnic and religious differences for personal gains appear to have been the prevailing behavior of the elite.
He wondered how one could explain the diversion of funds meant for arms procurement to fight insurgency to private pockets as well as why the actors failed to bother that their avarice and greed led to loss of lives of ill equipped federal troops.
The Vice President said that the solution is on the revitalization and revival of the nation’s defence industries as well as linkages to the economy, saying that the country should reduce dependence on other nations as well as learn from the experiences of some.
“We should not allow situation to arise again in which we as a nation are unable to source the arms, even the most basic arms, with which to prosecute a war.
“For our nation to survive we must insist that the Nigerian elite accepts its responsibility to make the sacrifice necessary. We must ensure that there are consequences for corruption; that we insist on integrity in the conduct of public and private business.
“We must resist the urge to divide our nation along ethnic of religious lines and we must hold ourselves accountable for the future of our nation. We must choose the path of discipline and honour.”
Osinbajo identified key aspects of the economic dimension of national security as the use of economic policy to foster national cohesion as well as foster national economic development and stability.
“We will continue to have challenges to national security if our citizens do not have a common commitment to the national interest. If significant sectors of our society feel marginalized or that their interests are not being properly catered for then we can expect threats to national security arising from divisive tendencies. In such circumstances, economic disaffection could emerge in various forms including class tensions, ethnic and religious divisions and low-level insurgencies.”
According to him, government in such circumstances should use economic policies to build a fair and equitable society by tackling poverty, inequality and providing jobs and economic opportunities.
Osinbajo said the Muhammadu Buhari administration is set to achieve the objectives by the provision of several social security nets worth more than half a trillion naira in the 2016 budget and measures for employment of 500,000 teachers.
He decried the manner in which the previous budgets of the country were formulated to the exclusion of the interests of the poor and the vulnerable.
He noted that while the bulk of the 2016 budget would take care of infrastructure, the single most important aspect is that the budget is giving social investment incentives in the form of direct employment. [myad]
