The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) yesterday reeled out their security plans to Nigerians ahead of the 2019 elections.
The parties disclosed the plans at the Nigerian Political Parties Discussions Series organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) in Abuja.
Osita Chidoka, one of the spokespersons of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, said that the biggest security threat facing Nigeria today was lack of identity.
According to Mr Chidoka, the biggest security threat facing Nigeria is lack of identity. He explained that there is no record available on criminal activities of mischievous people.
“The PDP will change the security sector first by moving from a state centric security architecture to people centric architecture; our focus is to move away from guns to public safety.
“We must begin to measure our output in security in terms of how secure Nigerians are by delivering public safety across all parameters. That is why the PDP’s plan is focused on reducing the over centralisation of the Nigerian security force.
“PDP’s second plan is to widen the concept of policing starting from the intelligence arm which is from the DSS arm to the enforcement arm it the Police, Civil Defence, Road Safety, NAFDAC to the courts who adjudicate on matters of criminality then to the corrective side which is the prisons.’’
Mr Chidoka said that there would be no bottlenecks in delivering security because if the outcome on the enforcement side was improved, ”it would impact on the adjudication side which would in turn impact on the correction side”.
He said that PDP’s security plan was a holistic one with the goal to make sure that all the bottlenecks which posed problems would be removed.
Lanre Isah-Oniru, National Publicity Secretary, APC, said that the party had three plans to revamp the security sector in the next phase of its leadership, one by increasing the number of the policemen.
Mr Isah-Oniru said that this was because the number of Nigerian policemen had always been inadequate.
He also said that the APC would train security agents on all the details of policing and intelligence gathering.
He added that the welfare of security personnel would be looked into to ensure good salaries and other welfare packages.
“This government is focused on addressing those three issues, it is not a promise but it is what is already going on because the salaries of the police had just been increased,” he said
Isah-Oniru said that APC would mop up all revenue for the benefit of all citizens.
He said that Nigeria in the next few years under the APC would be secured with an environment conducive for business and stability.
Tope Fasua, presidential candidate of ANRP said a lot of security problems arose from poverty and hunger in the society stating that his party would tackle insecurity through economic stability.
Fasua said that to achieve this, the party would work hard to double Nigeria’s national budget and grow her economy targeting a budget of N15 trillion in order to take people out of poverty.
“A hungry man is an angry man, so, if you put money in people’s hands and put food on their tables they will be less likely to cause security issues. So, our plan is a sound and equal economic sector free of corruption for the benefit of all.’’
Armsfree Ajanaku, senior communications officer, CDD said that the event was organised to enable people to interface with political parties.
Ajanaku said the topic of the debate which was security, brought out other critical issues concerning the parties, adding that the discussions would afford citizens the opportunity to make up their minds on who to vote for in 2019. (NAN)
