PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu laid the 2024 Federal Appropriation Bill before the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, signifying his first full annual cycle financial master-plan after a couple of prior supplementary budgets.

The N27.5 trillion budget outlay, which has been criticised in some quarters as “overambitious”, places priority on national security. It also emphasises macro-economic stability, job creation, optimisation of atmosphere for economic growth, human capital development, reduction of poverty and what he called “social security”.

Without prejudice to the lingering doubts as to the administration’s ability to raise the funds in order to spend it as planned, we believe the president has got his priorities right, provided he backtracks from the All Progressives Congress, APC, Federal Government’s frivolous pursuits of cash transfer programmes in the guise of implementing “social security”.

Cash transfers must wait until a  valid and reliable social register is established and the nation can afford a social security system that endures and reaches the real people it targets. For now, funds for social security should be ploughed into human capacity development, poverty alleviation and job creation. We must create the wealth first before we spend responsibly.

Indeed, national defence and security must come first. The greatest threats to the ordinary Nigerian today are food insecurity and hunger. Nigerians are seriously hungry! Even the Federal Government recently admitted that 90 million Nigerians are starving. It has already been established that 140 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor.

The single most important source of hunger and poverty in Nigeria is insecurity, which got out of hand under the government of Muhammadu Buhari, for the simple fact that he played ethnic, regional and religious politics with our national security. Under him, Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East was joined by marauding bandits in the North-Central and North-West. Also, armed herdsmen built camps in forests and farmlands all over the country, destroying farming communities and driving farmers into refugee camps.

In putting our first priority on national security, efforts must be made to prevent military profiteering from our security budget, which was rampant in the Buhari era. The network of sponsors, supporters and collaborators of criminals and armed gangs must be rooted out and ruthlessly dealt with. The Police, the Civil Defence and other security agencies must be more involved in this endeavour. The people must also be part of it. Every community must play a role in its own security.

As the situation returns to normalcy, we must launch an aggressive technology and digital-driven agricultural revolution at all governmental levels and restore food security. Our economy is in our hands. Foreigners will rush here to benefit from our prosperity when we create it, along with its enabling environment.

Competent implementation of the 2024 budget is key.