Governor Babagana Umara Zulum has attributed poor governance, weak institutional capacity, and mismanagement of resources has major problems hindering development in Nigeria.
The Governor stated this in Abuja on Tuesday while delivering a lecture titled ” Promoting National Security and Sustainable Development: Borno State Experience at the National Institute For Security Studies.
Zulum who gave account of his experience as Governor in the last one year noted that national security and sustainable development are two sides of the same coin, adding that without security there will be no development.
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The Governor also noted that for Nigeria to attain sustainable national development and security there has to be a commitment both from the leaders and the followers, without everyone playing his role sustainable national development cannot be attained.
He attributed the crises in most parts of the country to the obsolete/inadequate equipment and personnel adding that while other countries using artificial intelligence and other forms of technologies in their security architecture “Nigeria we are still digging trenches to protect ourselves.”
Zulum also cautioned Nigerians not to take the security crisis in the northeast as regional affairs, he said “the insurgency not our problem alone, let’s act or it consume us all. There is an increasing budgettery allocation to security since the beginning of this crisis, the resources which we shoud have ordinarily invest in developing our infrastructure is now shifted to the security sector. You see it affect all of us either directly or indirectly.”
Zulum discussed different aspects of the National Security and Sustainable Development also decried the poor quality of education in the country, stressing that Universities have become mere edifice producing unproductive graduates.
He disclosed that Borno State currently has over 50,000 orphans without access to any form of education warning that 50,000 young men growing up without education is a serious threat to national security.
The Governor lamented that the insurgency has forced citizens from the state to become unproductive,as most of their means of livelihood have been taken away.
“It is pity when others are talking about educational development, infrastructure development at the rural areas, we are struggling to feed our people”
Zulum concluded that, despite the effects of insurgency on the national security and development, people oriented leadership and governance with support from all levels of government can mitigate the impact.
