Nigerians have been advised to hold their respective state governors and local government chairmen accountable for the hardship they are going through in the country.
Speaking in Abuja, at the public presentation of ‘Vicious Red Circle,’ a book on human trafficking authored by Alex Oriaku, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC),
Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, charged Nigerians to begin to demand tangible development and people oriented projects from sub national
leaders, given the significant increase in monthly allocations to states and councils.
“No governor in Nigeria collects less than three times, up to four times what they used to collect
before. None. Who knows that two years ago, there was a sharing of about N400 billion per month—but today, the last sharing they did was
N2.2 trillion.
“So, they can do more for their people. No governor collects less than three times. None. They are focusing now on bigger projects.
And to me, this is a turnaround that we need in governors. I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your local government chairmen. Let
them do more,” Yilwatda said. Yilwatda, who maintained that the administration of President
Bola Tinubu was on the right track, expressed optimism that the party would drive the country toward economic recovery. At the event, the discussion extended beyond governance to a more pressing humanitarian crisis— human trafficking, a scourge that has earned Nigeria the reputation of being both a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked persons in Africa and beyond.
Despite efforts by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP)since its establishment in 2003, Nigeria remains one of the leading countries in West Africa affected by human trafficking.
Hundreds of victims, mostly women and children, are trafficked annually within the country and
abroad—particularly to Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa—for forced labour, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude.
Reaffirming the government’s resolve to combat the menace, Director-General of the National
Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mohammed Mohammed, described human trafficking as one of the most dangerous transnational
crimes, likening it to drug and arms
trafficking.
“Human trafficking has eroded our social fabric and robbed some of our people of their dignity and future,” he said, adding that the NIA has continued to provide intelligence and operational support to NAPTIP.