UN General Assembly
1997

convinced that the urgent demands of socio-economic development cannot be effectively tackled without peace and stability. Nigeria believes that peace and stability in Africa will facilitate the channelling of our limited resources into the critical areas of political, social and economic development. Consequently, since the end of our civil war in 1970, we have embarked on a deliberate and substantial reduction of the Nigerian armed forces from a strength of 500,000 in all ranks to the barely 100,000 that it is today. This has resulted in a corresponding reduction in military expenditure. Security considerations have sometimes compelled countries to allocate a disproportionate share of their national budgets to military expenditure. This has had the effect of reducing resources available for development. The end of the cold war had raised hopes that substantial resources would be available in the form of a peace dividend for development. Unfortunately, the proliferation of regional conflicts and civil wars has led even the United Nations into allocating enormous resources for peacekeeping and conflict resolution, thus weakening its capacity to fulfil its Charter obligations regarding social