In government, Nigerian politicians have been admonished by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to desist from using insecurity as a weapon against their opposition.

At the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) 2024 Annual General Conference opening ceremony on Sunday, she addressed a room full of attorneys at the Eko Hotel & Suites in Lagos. A Social Contract For Nigeria’s Future was the topic of the keynote speech given by the former finance minister of Nigeria.

“We cannot have socio-economic development without security. We certainly cannot have security without development,” the WTO chief said.

“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.

“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.”