Featured, Politics
By Paul Ukpabio
PROF Kingsley Moghalu, former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has lamented the present fragile state of affairs in the nation.
Moghalu, also a political economist, told Realnews in an exclusive interview last week, that Nigeria is definitely not in a state of coma and that, “it is more accurate to say that Nigeria is a failing state.”
According to him, “Many of the characteristics of a fragile state have existed for a long time, such as weak state capacity, loss of legitimacy in the eyes of many of its citizens, corruption, and weak control over portions of its territory that are dominated by terrorists and bandits.”
Although Moghalu said that the country is failing, he, disagreed with the notion that Nigeria’s situation could be compared to Somalia, a fellow terrorized African country.
“When you consider the activities of Boko Haram, killer herdsmen and bandits in parts of the country, our country is certainly heavily terrorized, but there are other aspects in which countries like Somalia are worse off because central authority has been contested for years, and there is very little economy to speak of. The very fact of Nigeria being discussed in this context along with countries like this is itself strong evidence that we are a distressed and fragile state,” said Moghalu.
He called on the federal government to end insurgency and curb banditry and other criminal activities in the country.
In doing that, Moghalu suggested that, “The national security apparatus needs to be revamped and monitored for corruption, and completely re-trained by an external professional army.
“Transparency needs to be improved in the funding and spending of the armed forces. We need to go beyond military approaches to improve human intelligence and civilian-military relations. Policing must be made more local through constitutional devolution of responsibility.”
– Jan. 18, 2021 @ 14:04 GMT |
Tags: Nigeria is a failing state but not yet Somalia - Prof. Moghalu
