Vice-President Kashim Shettima said there is no marked difference between the poor in Nigeria and their animals in terms of living condition. Shettima opined this on Saturday in Abuja at the graduation ceremony of the Executive Intelligence Management Course 16 participants from different security agencies and nominees of state governments.
Speaking at the event the National Institute for Security Studies organised, the VP expressed concern at the grinding poverty bedeviling ordinary Nigerians, saying it has reached a point where they are not better than animals in their care.
“They (the poor) are the most neglected segment of our society. You can hardly differentiate between them and their animals. Even the animals they rear belong to those in the city. So, there have to be kinetic and non-kinetic solutions to all the problems. Be it the IPOB agitation in the South-East; be it the challenges in the South-South; be it Boko Haram or rural banditry in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central,” the VP said.
He also stated that the masses have become contemptious of the elite, saying, “All of us here belong to a tiny segment of the Nigerian population. And you don’t need a soothsayer to tell you that the poor are angry with us. Go to the slums and mingle with the poor. I am a native of Maiduguri (Borno State Capital). Anytime a rich man brought a new car to his house, it (the house) used to be a place of pilgrimage.
“People (used to) go and see not out of anger, but out of admiration. But now, as we cruise around in our bulletproof cars, one will see contempt in the eyes of the poor. We have to improve the quality of governance. And what we have is a tiny window of not more than 10 to 20 years. Let’s improve the quality of governance.”
