President Muhammadu Buhari was on Monday tasked to overhaul the security architecture of the country to capture community intelligence as current security strategies are not working.
Convener of Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), Dr Usman Bugaje stated this in Kaduna during the northern Nigeria Security Conference organised by ARDP in collaboration with Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, Savanna Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD) and Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations.
The summit, which aimed at addressing the incessant insecurity ravaging the north and Nigeria particularly the issues of rural banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, farmer- herder clash and insurgency, is also an avenue to tell those occupying government positions the truth about the security reality on ground without making it appearing politically motivated.
“What is happening in Nigeria today in terms of security is known to everybody. A lot of killings and atrocities are underreported. We have a situation where things were deteriorating and still deteriorating and every move by the security agency is not translating to positive results. It becomes necessary to re-examine the situation and explore the community approach.
“In these two days, we have brought experts even though many of them have retired from security forces, so they can bring their expertise and see how the communities can complement the efforts of the security. We are not here to blame any particular person. We did underscore a few points of action. First, there is the need for us to take this issue of security very seriously with all responsibility. There should be no room for politics or joke here.
“Second, I did say that a citizen will have a responsibility to participate and to show when the government is not delivering even if it is under dictatorship in the circumstance that we are. So, we want people who are holding government positions from the lowest up to the president to understand that, what they have been doing is not working. This is because, it is the citizens who can tell you whether what you are doing is working or not.
“The third point we are considering is the fact that, they seem to have lost their courage to tell the truth. We are not sure if the President is getting the truth. We want to make sure those that are making policies and strategies are listening to the truth. It is important that whatever we see to be truth we say it.
“Yes, there is superior argument, information or knowledge. We go by whatever is superior, we must tell what we know and we should not give room for complacency,” Bugaje added.
The keynote speaker, Abubakar Sadiq Muhammed, said, the present blanket approach employed by security forces to tackle insecurity cannot give the results the country need.
“If you go to Zamfara, economy is in serious crisis. People are no longer going to farm and towns have been abandoned. There is large movement of people from the area they have been engaged in farming activities to area where they don’t do anything to become internally displaced persons.
“Sometimes, we demonstrate our lack of capability to deal with the situation we found ourselves. If care is not taken, these criminals will overrun the security – God forbid, and that was why I said we have to look at our security architecture in this country seriously,” he said.
