Insecurity, A Major Obstacle To Development – Tambuwal

The Governor Of Sokoto State His Excellency Aminu Waziri Tambuwal CFR has stated that insecurity has been found to be a leading obstacle to sustainable development in Nigeria.

Tambuwal who stated this while delivering a paper at the 63rd birthday lecture in honour of Richard Akinnola on august 23, 2021 at Raddison Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, observed that most indices of development as are now encapsulated in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as ending poverty, ensuring food security, good health and well-being, inclusive and equitable education, gender equality and empowerment of women, availability and sustainable management of water, etc., are current national challenges, which have not been sufficiently achieved as far as we can see.

Tambuwal stated in the paper that the insecurity in Nigeria not only competes with actual development items for budgetary funding, but also distracts government from concentrating on strengthening our institutions, which in turn would ensure the attainment of these important Sustainable Development Goals.

The former lawmaker discloses that in the 2020 budget, 190.65 billion Naira was allocated to security alone.  A total of 212.32 billion Naira have been allocated in the 2021 budget, an increment of 11.13%, and that Nigeria has one of the highest military budgets in Africa.

While advising that the remote causes of insecurity must therefore be identified and tackled headlong if we are to succeed in our bid to achieve national growth, cohesion and development, Tambuwal emphasized that development is one of the major goals of any government and it is unsustainable when the foundations are not strong enough to endure, adding that the principle behind sustainability is to make life meaningful for all citizens.