Senator representing Borno South senatorial district at the Nigerian Senate, Ali Ndume, has insisted that Nigeria should not be needing aids from any country.
According to him, the country has enough of everything to care for its citizens and even give out aids to other countries, but was facing bad leadership.
The Trump administration has enforced the exit of the US Agency for International Development, USAID, which it labelled as a criminal organisation.
One of Trump’s billionaire aides, Elon Musk, who heads Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, had moved to seize control of USAID, describing it as evil and a criminal organisation.
He also said that the “USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America” and “USAID is evil.”
Last week, Scott Perry, a United States Congressman representing Pennsylvania, accused the agency of funding terrorist organizations like Boko Haram.
Perry disclosed this at the inaugural hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on Thursday.
Speaking during a session titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” Perry accused USAID of providing $136 million for building 120 schools in Pakistan.
Ndume, who spoke on Channels Television, said the way Nigeria is blessed, citizens of other countries should be the ones coming to work and live in the country.
“What I’m saying is that the security and welfare of Nigerian citizens is the responsibility of the government. It is not the responsibility of any other government or any other country.
“So this issue of relying on aids from other countries is not even good for us, because Nigeria, by now, it’s supposed to be the one that is giving out aids, not the one receiving aids. So why don’t we?
“I think this is like a wake up call for all of us to stand up. We have everything. The only problem is in the leadership, and I think we need to fix that one so that we’ll tap into what we have and be contented with it.
“I remember that in those days, foreigners were coming here to even teach in secondary schools and even primary schools as expatriates, but now Nigerians are struggling to go outside the country and to be slaves, so to say, and doing some dirty jobs in order to survive,” he said.
