Budget 2012 (1): Budget Of National Security?

Leadership

19 December 2011

Budget 2012 (1): Budget Of National Security?

LEADERSHIP EDITORIAL

Tagged “Budget of Fiscal Consolidation, Inclusive Growth and Job Creation”, President Goodluck Jonathan presented a budget of N4.749 trillion, 6 per cent above the current fiscal year, to the Joint Session of the National assembly last Tuesday with Security taking the lion’s share. In all, the president budgeted N921.9 billion for that sector to stymie the myriad of challenges he considered limiting Nigeria’s economic growth.

Of the challenges, Boko Haram , Niger Delta militants, kidnappers, armed robbers and other security threats are topmost. According to the president, security has to take the lion’s share because of “the threat of Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants and increasing spate of insecurity and wanton destruction of lives and property by criminal which are on the rise”.

Ordinarily, security is the primary responsibility of government. What remains to be seen is how a sector’s appropriation that accounts for more than those of twelve ministries combined would ensure public safety and stop the country’s drift towards the Hobbesian Age, where life is nasty, brutish and short.

The insecurity of lives and property in 2011 has been unprecedented; the nation witnessed bomb explosions and unwarranted deaths. Despite the huge budget set aside for the rehabilitation of the Niger Delta militants, the problem could not be said to have been solved. What with the protest by some aggrieved militants last week? Soldiers, Joint Task Forces and the police continue to stalk people on the streets on a daily basis, making the country look like a state under siege. Provincial militia groups keep mutating while national cohesion recedes faster than the gunshots from the creeks.

But we are worried that the huge investment being made on security pales into insignificance as basic infrastructure becomes a pipedream and growth becomes an unattainable desire. Security is a desideratum for achieving the developmental goals of Nigeria, therefore more support should be provided for the police, defence and other counter-terrorism outfits. However, security is a means to an end and not the end in itself. The president and his security advisers need to retool and re-strategise to surmount the challenges that are at once new and over-arching.