Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said there are no more excuses for failure to stop the incident of massive oil theft in the country as there are enough technology to do so.
Okonjo-Iweala, also a former Nigeria’s Finance Minister, who stated this in Lagos at the weekend, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) yesterday, said those responsible for stopping the “intolerable” action of crude oil theft no longer have excuses.
The former Nigerian finance minister who delivered a keynote address titled: ‘A Social Contract For Nigeria’s Future’, affirmed that there are enough technological innovations to track crude oil theft and bring those behind the act to justice in Nigeria.
She also said all Nigerians must accept that all Nigerians must agree that the stealing of the country’s national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped.
Okonjo-Iweala said, “A second aspect of security relates to the security of national assets. Nigerians have seen for years how organised crude oil theft on a massive scale seriously undermines the economic and financial health of the country.
“All Nigerians must agree that stealing of our national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped. There is so much technology available now to track such theft and there must be no more excuses for inaction”.
She also appealed to Nigerian politicians in Nigeria to stop weaponising insecurity against their opposition in office as she pointed out that the country cannot achieve
socio-economic development without security.
She said, “We certainly cannot have security without development. 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”.
Also present at the the event, with the theme, ‘Pressing Forward; A National Posture to Rebuilding Nigeria’, were former President of Ghana John Mahama and the President of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem.
President Bola Tinubu was represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima while Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, (CJN) Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun; Senate President Godswill Akpabio and his counterpart in the lower chamber Tajudeen Abbas were also represented at the event.
