A civil society organisation under the aegis of Citizens Watch Advocacy Initiative (CWAI), has described the proposed security summit as a waste of taxpayers’ money saying, Nigeria does not need any jamboree security summit.
It would be recalled that the current Senate President was the Senate Leader of the 8th National Assembly and a summit was conducted at the Nigeria Air Force Conference Centre, Abuja, where all the Security Chiefs were present and papers delivered by virtually all the security stakeholders, including expatriates and Nigerians in the Diaspora, on the security challenges facing the nation. However, up till date, the recommendations of the summit have not been implemented, nor a whitepaper released to show any seriousness in finding any lasting solutions to the security menace.
In a statement signed by the executive secretary of the group, Omoba Kenneth Aigbegbele and made available to LEADERSHIP in Abuja yesterday, the CSO wondered why there will be another national security summit when the same Service Chiefs that have been around would be the same people to present papers.
‘’Nigeria at this juncture, CWAI reasons, does not need any jamboree security summit, but rather needs concerted efforts by all and sundry to implement the previous recommendations so as to nip in the bud these challenges once and for all,’’ Aigbegbele said.
Aigbegbele said since Independence in 1960, ‘’the country has witnessed several multilateral symposia, workshops and summits, all in a bid to chart a course for the nation of our dream, but most of these so-called exchange programme dialogues and summits have proven to be merely fleecing pipes of the nation’s vast economic resources into few hands while the implementation of the summits’ communiqué is never done.’’
He, therefore, called for the outright suspension of the planned security summit, as it is a wasteful venture aimed at spending taxpayers’ money.
Aigbegbele said such money should be channeled to other important areas of developing the nation like the construction of roads, social infrastructure, provision of electricity and the prompt payment of pensioners’ allowances, as well as payment of workers’ salaries.
