Weapons or Development: Which Do We Need More?

I like it.. love it when I hear policy analyst Rotimi Sankore say that 'no army can defeat poverty, hunger and unemployment'. That's the summary of the Nigerian situation. All the states of emergency that have been declared, the Python Dances, the Crocodile Smiles and so on, the source of those problems that these operations are meant to contain are nothing but poverty, hunger and unemployment. No army has ever defeated those three terrorists. Even if we have ten or even hundred times the amount of soldiers that we currently have, the only thing that will happen is that the state of insecurity will only get worse. Let's branch out a little.
 

I heard some weeks ago that the South Korean minimum wage is $1,200. Yes, one thousand and two hundred dollars. Our own is how much? About $80. I also heard that in South Korea, most of their police force don't usually carry arms. Handguns, I mean. Our own here even take home their assault rifles. Then let's look at Switzerland, one of the most comfortable nations in the world. I heard some time ago that they have no standing army. Same thing with Iceland and Japan. So let's come back to Nigeria. We don't even have a standing army, we have a jumping one. They're everywhere, fighting one problem or the other and dying like ownerless chickens in the process. The rest of the world are 'helping and supporting us' by sending more weapons, jets and helicopters. The little money we have that has not yet been spirited away by monkeys or swallowed by snakes, we also spend it in buying weapons and in the process, the money can develop engine problem and will eventually make an emergency landing in somebody's pocket. Diaris God. 

 

So we deploy expensive planes, helis, tanks, men, boats and so on to combat various degrees of crime and violence, spending so much money in the process. That is, not including the amounts that will be inflated by commanders of the various forces. You know how we do it in 9ja na. 'The vehicle patrolled 20km in 5hours and spent 500 litres of petrol', while in reality, the vehicle has not moved an inch for the past two days. Again, there is God. So after spending all this money, the rate of kidnapping keeps increasing all around the nation except in the imagination of the Chief of Naval Staff. Oga, wei done sir. It's not easy to be short. But sometimes, what we lack in height, we usually make up in imagination. Ahem.. So like I was saying before I stopped to salute Oga, we spend so much on security, including security votes which easily run into millions of dollars, but kidnapping, banditry and terrorism are steadily on the rise. Well, the usual government reaction is the blame game which is currently in full force. Those of you who know this Fela song: 'You be thief (I no be thief), You be rogue (I no be rogue), You be robber (I no be robber), You be armed robber (I no be armed robber), Argument argument argue...' So instead of treating the root cause of our problems, we buy weapons and accuse one another of fueling the insecurity. Our problems are hunger, poverty and unemployment, the lack of which makes Japan, South Korea, Iceland and Switzerland relatively very safe despite their security policy. Our government cannot pretend that they do not know our problems and even the solutions too, but a tenant that has just finished building his own house and has already packed all of his property will not care if his landlord's house is on fire because he has nothing in it. It's now solely his landlord's problem. Our leaders have Europe and America to run to when this nation will begin to collapse and those enemies of our progress will welcome them while denying the poor ones visas. Many African governments are now being run from London and Paris. Like Falz sang, 'four-year tenure, three-year holiday (hey hey, three-year holiday)'. Anyway, no be me talk am o!