Consultant urges stakeholders to address issues affecting nation’s security

 A London-trained security consultant, Chief Williams Fadoju, has identified four major issues threatening the nation’s security, calling on stakeholders to urgently address them.

Williams, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ibadan, also called for restructuring of the nation’s security operations.

According to him, there is need to remove politics completely from the nation’s security.

“In as much as we politicise our security, we are still mortgaging our future.

“Also, there is need to remove religion from the nation’s security; let us call a spade a spade.

“Some people are hiding under the cover of religion to commit atrocities in Nigeria.

“Any religion leader that uses the name of God to commit atrocities should not be spared from being punished, whether Christians or Muslims, and be made to face the consequences of the laws.

“Ethnicity is the third factor. For as long as we do not see ourselves as one Nigeria, when we see what happened in the North-East as happening to the Hausas and Fulani.

“What happened in the Southern part of Nigeria as the issue of the Ibo and Yoruba, our national security will continue to be under threat.’’

Fadoju, who was with the British Transport Police Officer before returning to Nigeria, said: “Individualism is another area we need to look at.

“Our patriotism is lean with our individualism for as long as every Nigerian refused to do the needful.

“It can never happen in Nigeria for a father to call a police station and hand over his child to the police for crime investigation as it was the practice in other climes.

“Until we address these four major issues threatening the nation’s security, we will still be under the shadow and the threat of security in this country.’’

According to him, efforts of the three tiers of government to address the nation’s insecurity challenges are not enough.

He said: “The efforts of the governments are even beclouded by politics.

“Because when you look at the genesis of insecurity or why do we have insecurity challenges, you will trace it to even segregation, you trace it to affluence, you will trace it to politics.

“It is a shame that we have a prominent religious leader in the country, could come out openly, telling the governments to pay ransom to bandits.

“Is he part of the team; is he the leader of that team? Why can’t we all be on the same page with the governments and say that what the bandits are doing are bad, and flush them out.

“You can imagine a prominent religious leader visiting the bandits in the forest, telling the government that until you do what the bandits are demanding, there will be no peace.

“If that happened in the foreign countries, that religious leader will be invited to answer a lot of questions.’’

Fadoju advised the security chiefs in the country to embrace modern methods to tackle insecurity in the country.

“How can we use the same method or system we used when the population of Nigeria was less than 40 million in securing Nigeria now when the population is more than 200 million in the 21st century?

“These are things we need to address, and until we do that and devolves power from the central back to the region, things will not work as we want it to be.

“I am not in support of the state police, but I am in support of the regional police,’’ he said.