A Security Expert, Col. Nelson Hambolu (retd.), has disclosed that inputs of Nigerians at the grassroots are required to win war against banditary, kidnapping and terrorism.
Hambolu, who also alleged that lack of synergy among the security agencies was another contributory factor to the prolong security challenges in the country, said the genesis of banditary needed to be unravelled before the best approach to end the menace can be activated.
The retired colonel,who spoke at a webinar organised by the Nigeria Diaspora Network (NDN), the United State (US) chapter, said: “We need to really know the genesis of banditry in Nigeria. This is how we can approach it.
“Why is it difficult to tackle this? Why is army not being able to do anything about it? To me, some of these questions are not new. These are things that started very little because a stitch in time save nine.
“Poverty, lack of jobs and so on are the causes. There are some socioeconomic problems here. The question is, what has the government done to solve unemployment? Anytime I go back to Nigeria, I feel sad seeing children who ought to be schools masking on our streets in Lagos, in the north etc.
“We cannot talk about banditry without talking about unemployment and poverty. Are our security agencies working in synergy? Let the relevant people do the job. We have local government authorities but majority of them are powerless”.
Professor Albert Ayeni of Rutgers State University, New Jersey, said it was disheartening that some of the countries Nigeria used to be ahead of, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc, are, today, far ahead of the country.
He attributed the current security challenge to bad leadership of past governments.
On his part, President, Nigerian Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) in New Jersey, Mr Kareem Bello, said the country is having a political system failure and alleged that the insecurity problem had cost the country billions of dollars.
