Stakeholders seek more women involvement in security matters

Nigerian women have been challenged to be actively involved in the issue of security, even as the nation heads into an electioneering year.

Stakeholders at the Women in Security Conference organised by ASIS International, in Lagos called on Women to see a security issue as germane to their survival and the overall economic well-being of Nigeria

Godwin Obaseki, Edo State governor in his contribution at the conference with the theme, ‘Developing Resilient Leaders for an Expanding Security Industry’, said women need to be involved in the security system of the country because they tended to suffer a great deal of the burden of a failed security system.

According to Obaseki, when the security system of a country fails, the greatest burden falls on women. The fall-outs, the challenges, and the pains are on women. We can’t have a security system without women in our structure.

Bola Adesola, chairman of Ecobank Nigeria Limited, in her keynote address, titled ‘What it Takes to Lead: Building the Next Generation of Resilient Leaders in an increasingly Volatile World’, urged women to take charge of their careers.

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“You need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Be continuously dissatisfied with the status quo. Build your own table if there is none; take charge of your career. Don’t outsource decisions that affect you to others,” Adesola said.

The chairperson, WIS Lagos 2022 conference, Tanwa Ashiru, said the role of security risk managers today is more than just responding to incidents that have already happened.

She further said that now more than ever, organizations are understanding the need to prepare for, respond to and recover from business disruptions through resilience building.

“Enterprise security risk managers operating in this season, must learn to be leaders who possess the ability to inspire members of an organization to take the necessary actions that will counter security risks which could harm the organization”.

“It is based on this premise that we themed this conference: “Building resilient leaders for an expanding African security industry”. We recognize that the role of the security risk manager is expanding, thus how this conference attendees could gain the confidence and charisma required adequately steer organizations through the volatility that seems to be all around us” Ashiru said.