Security Summit: Stakeholders Ask for Action Rather than Talk

By Ijendu Iheaka

Some Nigerians on Monday called for immediate action to remedy the nation’s security challenges while stressing that a talk shop was a waste of time and scarce resources.

The citizens who noted the abundance of reports and ideas to checkmate the worsening insecurity said the planned Security Summit by Nigeria’s Senate was unnecessary.

The call was coming at the heel of Nigerian Senate’s establishment of a committee to organize a three-day Security Summit for the nation.

Mr Okechukwu Nwanguma, Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) said discussions were welcomed if they would be implemented for a better environment.

He, however noted that over-engagement in discussions with critical analysis and yet not finding solutions as is the case of Nigeria was condemnable.

“You may need to understand the root cause, the actors, the factors and then  the solutions arising from a proper analysis engaging stakeholders in those areas.

“So when talk genuinely aims at addressing a problem, it is welcomed but when the motive is procurement, and talk becomes an avenue for spending public money and repeating what had been talked about, it is not acceptable.

“There is a saying that governments go about setting up committees or organizing conferences when they don’t want to do anything about any problem but just waste public resources,” he said.

Nwanguma noted that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Musa Yar’Adua’s governments set up two police reform committees in 2006 and 2008 with reports that were never implemented.

He said what Nigeria needed now was the political will to act on the many existing security sector reforms reports and not fresh talks.

He lamented that talks can never get Nigeria’s security right when even in the face of the worst incidences of insecurity, politicians still politicize appointments in the security sector.

Nwanguma said that in South East and Middlebelt where alleged IPOB members are reportedly killed daily by security agencies, these agencies look away from herder’s crimes, hence talk with insincerity would bring no solution.

Capt. Awa Udensi, Rtd, and former Security Adviser to former Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, said that Nigeria had had summits in the past with no results, hence it should think of a new approach.

“If the summit is meant to create further awareness it is good but if it would be talking and talking without walking the talk, then it means nothing.

“I think Nigerians have discussed enough. This should be time for action,” he said.

He urged government to gather security experts and heads of all security agencies to act on existing reports on Nigeria’s security situation rather than talking.

Udensi called for the fortification of safe areas in Nigeria to keep them safer and for concrete efforts to regain unsafe areas to make them governable.

He said injustice in the country partly fuels insecurity and urged the redrawing of Nigeria’s Constitution to return it on the path of progress.

An Aba-based Historian and Public Affairs Analyst, Mr Nnamdi Elekwachi said Nigeria has many existing policy reform documents with a huge implementation gap.

He said the debate to organize a national security summit followed the spate of killings that recently befell Benue and Plateau states.

He said while the executive arm of government may have a different  panacea to the nation’s insecurity, the Senate thinks a talk would do.

“Summit, dialogue, conference, whatever name and guise is not new in Nigeria; they existed before and accompanied us to flag independence.

“There exists a cache of security reform reports, many of which are layered within federalism and restructuring dialogues which the Senate can leverage rather than waste funds, materials and paraphernalia of governance,” he submitted.