Olutayo Adeshina, a professor of economic history and head of the Department of History, University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, has urged Nigerians to develop and cultivate reasonable political culture to stem the trend of insecurity in the country.
Adeshina, who delivered a public lecture tagged, “Insecurity and the Nigerian economy: The paradox of plenty” at the University of Ilorin, posited that a palpable state of insecurity exists in Nigeria for more than a decade because people failed to understand the society and not doing things rightly.
According to him, lack of adequate measures to address the problems of insecurity and other problems such as corruption and inefficiencies have resulted to the rise of poverty, indecency, declining revenue among others that threatened economic momentum in the country.
The historian added that “in the 70s, Nigeria was stable, rich and secured; naira was strong then but the situation changed when the country was wasting resources on importation of products from countries across the world. Now, our naira is weak and that is destroying our economy.
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Earlier, Abdulrasheed Adeoye, professor and dean, Faculty of Arts University of Ilorin, noted that insecurity had graduated beyond the dominion of any perception to the reality that man has to contend with in the 21st century.
He identified ethnoreligious conflicts, injustice, economic recession, unemployment and poverty, porous borders among other factors responsible for insecurity in Nigeria, adding that” with the above-listed shades of insecurity; economic, political and social developments will elude us, we must bounce back by engaging in intellectually and refreshingly developmental in our actions.”
Yahya Oyewole, professor of Islamic Studies described the topic for the lecture as apt and timely considering the rate of insecurity bedevilling the nation.
Oyewole observed that in spite of the government efforts in tackling the menace, insecurity in Nigeria keeps deteriorating.
He said it was worrisome and devastating that Nigeria still grapples with insecurity, and called for all hands to be on deck.
