Nigeria is a weak and failing state, the Vice Chancellor, VERITAS University of Nigeria, Abuja, Professor Mike Kwanashie has said.

He was speaking at a seminar at the ongoing 34th Kaduna International Trade Fair yesterday. He said that Nigeria is a weak and failing state, saying that the greatest danger to Nigeria’s insecurity is the state itself.

He said that unless the state transforms itself to a just state with a political class that is committed to keeping the country together that will lead to the complete advancement of the country there can be no security.

“How can we have peace and security when 70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, 70 percent of its people are marginalized. The North-East is the poorest part of the country,” he lamented.

“The state of insecurity in Nigeria is a fall out of the mismanagement of our politics and our economy by the present political class, that we cannot divorce the present leadership question in Nigeria with the state of insecurity of our youths. “The state of insecurity of Nigeria must first and foremost be seen within the context of globalization, because today’s globalization that seems to incorporate all every  counties and every individual meaning we are no longer a country in isolation, everything that happens in the world today impacts on us, global insecurity has direct implication for our own security,” he said.

The professor of Economics said that “global economic progress has direct implication so we cannot discuss security or insecurity in Nigeria without appreciating the global context that we must operate within to secure ourselves or address the insecurity challenges.

“As we are talking today, our soldiers are in Mali and one of the justifications of going to Mali is that there is a school of thought that believes that part of the security problems we are facing is a rise from what has happened in the Middle East and in North Africa.”