The Director General of World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has stated that stealing of national assets of any type is intolerable and must be stopped .
She made this known during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA) on 25th August in Lagos themed ‘ Pressing Forward: A National Posture to Rebuilding Nigeria’
The WTO DG revealed that crude oil theft is a threat to security and Nigeria has sufficient technological innovations to tackle it and apprhend those involved.
She urged politicians to cease from instigating insecurity to make their opponents look incompetent.
” One aspect of security relates to the security of national assets.Nigerians have seen for years how organized crude oil theft on a massive scale undermines the economic and financial health of the country”
” All Nigerians must agree that stealing 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 ”
” We cannot have socio-economic development without security. We certainly cannot have security without development ”
” We all know that security has been weaponized in our country and 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 properties of innocent Nigerians.This has to stop” she said.
