It has been a momentous week for a republic at a critical juncture. During the week 82 innocent souls perished as a result of the unsuccessful assassination attempts on two key national figures: Islamic scholar, Sheikl Bauchi and former Head of State and presidential aspirant, General Muhammadu Buhari. The political consequences of a successful assassination of key figures are best left in the realm of nightmare.
Within this context, the president has a clear imperative to ask for additional resources to stage a fight back against terrorism. The British Premier, David Cameron who is also facing threats from terrorists is doing the same thing. However, there is a significant difference. Cameron is spending an extra one billion pounds on counter-terrorism from cost savings made over the last four years. There is no extra appropriation involved and certainly no loan request.
This is why in approving the loan request the National Assembly must show uncharacteristic due diligence. For a start, with foreign exchange reserves close to $39 billion and over $6 billion in the excess crude account why borrow in the first place since the returns on the foreign reserves are excruciatingly low? Why not borrow from the reserves? Having exited from a debilitating debt trap just a few years ago, the nation has every reason to be weary. In the same week, the Federal Executive Council also approved $82 million in fresh borrowing to end the polio scourge.
In view of our past mismatching of loans, there is a lot to be perturbed about. It is to be hoped that we are not going back to the late 1970’s when it was fashionable to mouth the mendacity that “Nigeria is under-borrowed.” See where that got us! The National Assembly must also ask for a detailed breakdown of how the monies will be disbursed. Prime Minister Cameron did not hide behind the screen of “national security” when he addressed the British Parliament.
On the contrary, the Premier gave a detailed breakdown of how the money will be expended item by item. By so doing, he gave a much needed insight as to the strategic imperative guiding the counter-terrorism effort. The National Assembly owes the public a duty of care to do the same.
This is because a major reason for the present unease is the perception that the country has no coherent counter-terrorism strategy. The feeling is that with an additional loan request we are just throwing good money after bad. The executive must dispel this perception.
In the process of obtaining legislative approval for the request, the executive must seize the opportunity to outline a coherent counter-terrorism strategy. As Cameron has shown, this in no way endangers the effort. The legislature must also know how past financial inputs have been (hopefully) judiciously expended.
The key issue centres on the managerial capacity to manage the effort. The executive must demonstrate that the capacity is there. Otherwise, the lingering feeling will continue that we are just throwing good money after bad and imperiling the polity with an ineffective counter-terrorism strategy.
