Padded budget, wasteful expenditures fuelling insecurity – Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has blamed padded budgets and wasteful government expenditure for Nigeria’s worsening insecurity, describing reports that 5,091 Nigerians were killed in violent incidents across the country within three months as a damning scorecard on the President Bola Tinubu administration’s most fundamental responsibility of protecting lives and property.

“Today, we have 5,091 reported killings in just three months, 5,091 shattered families, 5,091 indictments of this administration’s security failures, and ultimately, 5,091 reasons this government must go”, he declared. 

In a statement on Sunday in Abuja, his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the figures were not merely statistics but a grim measure of the human cost of insecurity and the consequences of a government that has failed to match its rhetoric with the resources, discipline and urgency required to protect Nigerians.

“Behind every number is a Nigerian whose life was cut short, a family thrown into mourning, children deprived of parents and communities condemned to fear. Five thousand and ninety-one reported killings in just three months should trouble the conscience of any government. 

“These figures are the human cost of every padded budget, every frivolous expenditure and every failure to fully implement funds appropriated for critical national priorities. You cannot run the public treasury as though it were a private purse, squander scarce resources on questionable priorities and then expect soldiers and other security personnel on the frontlines to perform miracles,” he said.

The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC, said the practice of treating fiscal appropriation as an inconvenience while public resources are diverted to politically expedient projects continues to undermine national security and weaken the capacity of the Armed Forces and other agencies to respond decisively to threats.

While welcoming the recently announced pay increase for military personnel, Atiku said improved remuneration, though necessary, represents only a fraction of what is required to restore morale and strengthen operational effectiveness among troops on the frontlines.

“Our soldiers deserve better pay, but morale is about much more than salaries. They require adequate equipment, operational funding, timely allowances, proper welfare for their families and the assurance that the government they defend is as committed to their mission as they are,” he said.

He insisted that Nigerians deserve a government that cuts waste, eliminates questionable expenditure and substantially improves the implementation of budgetary appropriations, particularly for defence and security.

“A government that cannot protect its citizens has failed the first test of governance. Nigerians cannot continue to pay with their lives for the failures, waste and misplaced priorities of an administration that has failed in its most basic constitutional duty,” he said.

Atiku added that every Nigerian lost to terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other violent crimes represents a failure of the state, noting that the victims were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and breadwinners who had every right to expect protection from their government.