Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organisation’s director-general, has slammed Nigerian politicians for weaponising insecurity to undermine the administration of President Bola Tinubu and governors across the country.

Ms Okonjo-Iweala, who served as finance minister under former President Goodluck Jonathan, said this on Sunday at the opening ceremony of the Nigerian Bar Association’s 2024 Annual General Conference held in Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos.

“We all know that security has been weaponised in our country for political purposes by political actors, leading partly to the situation we have now,” the ex-finance minister stated. “We have politicians who believe that the best way to make their opponents look bad is to instigate insecurity, making it look like they can’t govern, regardless of whether this leads to loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians.”

“This has to stop,” the WTO boss added.

Ms Okonjo-Iweala also pointed out that Nigeria’s socio-economic progress is hampered by a prolonged insecurity crisis, emphasising the need to combat the theft of national assets through advanced technology.

“We cannot have socio-economic development without security” and the “theft of national assets must be stopped, deploying technology,” Ms Okonjo-Iweala noted.

The former minister stressed that “all Nigerians must agree that stealing of our national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped” and that there “is so much technology available now to track such theft, and there must be no more excuses for inaction.”

Her statement came amid perennial and fatal insecurity plaguing the country and the attendant politicking.