The Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi yesterday said the insecurity challenges of the nation cannot be tackled in the most perfect way without tackling the economic problems which has left many poor.
Speaking at the flag off of the Financial Inclusion Strategy Pilot Implementation in Maiduguri, the CBN Governor said the present security challenges faced by the country could be traced back to the nation’s checkered economic crisis.
He asserted that any attempt to solve one without the other will be termed a wasted effort as everyone need to bring all available resources to the table in order to tackle the problem of insecurity pervading the entire country.
He said Nigeria cannot afford to be so obsessed with the security situation of Borno, to think that the only solution is to flee the state or limit strategies to solving the challenges only without tackling what perhaps led to it in the first place.
He noted that thinking that security challenges is in isolation and can be tackled in isolation is like entering a vicious cycle that will do no one any good.
The Governor of the apex bank who identified poverty and unemployment as the genesis of the Boko Haram crisis, said for the nation to be secured, the economy must be viable enough.
He said: “There cannot be security without viable economy. Security depends on a viable economy and we cannot fix the present insecurity in the state without fixing the economy or putting the economy in the right shape.”
He stressed that: “It is viable economy first before security”.
On Borno, he said the people, especially government and its institutions cannot continue to flee the state because of the present level of insecurity.
He further buttressed thus: “We do not believe all the problem of Borno is economic but we believe strongly that if we tackle this problem we would have gone a long way to tackle the socio-political problem of the state, especially the issue of insecurity in the state.”
Sanusi said the population of Nigeria is distributed unevenly, with an average population of 150 per square kilometres and densely populated states are Lagos, Anambra and Akwa Ibom with he country urbanization rate estimated at 49% in 2009 and expected to rise to 75% by 2050.
He also said that while financial inclusion is most advanced in Nigeria’s urban areas, especially the Southern parts of the country, Northern Nigeria is particularly disadvantaged with 68% of adults excluded in both the North-East and North-West regions.
He said: “This afternoon (yesterday) we are going to launch another development entrepreneurship centre for the North-East. This year the Central Bank is going to build a centre of excellence in the University of Maiduguri and for our secondary school intervention in the North-East this year we are going to invest in the El-Kanemi College here in Maiduguri. The decision of the Bankers’ Committee to select Borno state as the pilot state for the Central Bank financial intervention strategy is in recognition of the fact that the North-East of the country is one of the financially excluded part of the country.”
Also speaking, the Minister for Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson said the post office is very vital in getting most Nigerians especially those in the rural communities financially included.
She lamented the recent attack on telecommunication masks particularly in Borno State, noting that over 200 telecommunication masks have been destroyed in Borno State alone.
In his speech, the governor of Borno State, Alhaji Kashim Shettima said “it is important to note that the security challenges confronting the state and the nation as a whole is not unconnected with poverty, unemployment and lack of education among the youth population.”
He affirmed further that “any effort aimed at addressing unemployment will be embraced by every responsible and responsive government as most youth are said to me idle as a result of unemployment.
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