• Friday, March 29, 2024
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‘Strategic measures must be taken by FG to fight insecurity’

‘Strategic measures must be taken by FG to fight insecurity’

Abiodun Alao, University lecturer and professor of African Studies at King’s College London, has said that most security challenges confronting Nigeria are the inevitable outcomes of accumulated neglect of the entrenched flaws inherent in our body politic.

Alao, who is also the Programme Director, African Leadership Centre, School of Global Affairs, and Chair, African Community of Practice in the College, stated this yesterday while delivering the 35th University of Ilorin convocation lecture with the theme: ‘Issues and Thoughts on Securing Nigeria”.

According to him, Nigeria now faces profound security challenges that threaten its existence, adding that “apocalyptic conclusions have been reached by some that the country is in the ‘Intensive Care Unit’.

“The security problems facing Nigeria today fall under several headings: there is organised crimes, the best manifestation of which is kidnapping; there is religious radicalisation, exemplified by the activities of Boko Haram; there is the trans-human, represented by the so-called herdsmen controversies; there is the communal violence, typified by the various conflicts over land; there is one linked to youth vulnerability, associated with cultism; there is one connected with violent ethno-nationalism, illustrated with various secessionist agitations across the country, among others.”

According to him, “Right from independence, we had a faulty understanding of what a ‘nation’ should mean, and we did not make any serious attempt to build cohesion among the various groups that came together to form the entity called Nigeria.

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“To further crown it, the ‘inheritance elites’ (by this I mean those who took over at the time of independence) had a narrow understanding of what national unity meant.”

Alao, had while maintaining that he doesn’t believe that the actions of these people were coloured by raw ethnic differences; opined that “I will argue that their actions were motivated more by economic fears, political anxieties and inadequate empirical information about each other, rather than hatred.”

He explained that all the security problems are now suddenly emerging because the “structures of our foundations as a nation can no longer withstand the accumulated contradictions that had been heaped on it.”

According to him, “Over the past six decades, there had been strings of scattered disenchanted operational bases that were latent across the country. It is the gradual unfolding of these that have now accounted for where we have now found ourselves.

“So, instead of questioning ourselves as to why all these are happening, we should, in all honesty, be asking why it took this long for the accumulated disenchantments to manifest in our body politic.

“The sad reality now is that these problems will not disappear in a hurry. It will take some time before we can get out of this.”

Speaking on the solution to the problems of Boko Haram; kidnapping, herdsman/farmers, the don said the first step was to embark on a comprehensive arms recovery exercise. “As we all know, there is a massive proliferation of small arms and light weapons across the country.

“Federal government should protect both herders and farmers; prosecute attackers, before carrying out its National Livestock Transformation Plan.

“Communal leaders should curb inflammatory rhetoric and encourage compromise. International partners should advocate for accountability and support livestock sector reform”, he added.