NATIONAL Security Adviser, Gen Owoye Azazi, yesterday said Nigeria is redesigning the national security strategy to focus on the guarantee of public safety and national stability. According to him, Nigerians must imbibe the reality that security is the business of everybody, not just officials of government. Gen Azazi, who spoke at a seminar at the National Defence College Abuja under the theme: The Concept of National Security Strategy and the Changing Security Environment, also said that the imposition of state of emergency in the violence-prone States of Borno, Bauchi and Plateau States would not guarantee the needed security, rather, “it will further aggravate the state of insecurity by removing the Governor.”
Gen Azazi, who said that insecurity threats of the future would crystallise into armed violence, insurgency, irregular and guerrilla warfare, however, said these threats are not new but now, “everybody is everywhere. We have the CNN effect. Things happening in one locality are communicated immediately.”
For example, he said, despite the clampdown on Internet and wireless communication in Egypt, “people still communicate and mobilise.”
Gen Azazi thanked participants of Course 19 of the National Defence College for working on a national security strategy, which would be presented before the end of the course in August. He stated: “any security strategy we design must focus on public safety and national stability. And we must address the issues of security as a people and we must admit that security is everybody’s business.”
The former Chief of Defence Staff also said that Nigerians must be concerned about the state of insecurity in countries contagious to the nation because “in West Africa, political turmoil will be expected in countries like Niger, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea. We share border with Niger, so, we have to be interested in how the country is governed.
“In Nigeria, security threat will likely emerge by political issues and will likely be resolved by political leaders. And our inability to ensure food security despite our large arable land could pose security problems. And criminals are likely to take advantage of GSM and other inventions. And we are being pro-active in this area.”
Azazi stated that the use of GSM to perpetuate crimes would be curtailed by June this year when all Sim Cards would have been registered.
Commandant of the Defence College, Rear Admiral Thomas John Lokoson, stated that “while traditional security problems remain central concerns, an array of less well-defined dangers have assumed prominent places in strategic planning considerations. Individually and collectively, these traditional and non-traditional security problems are shaping and defining security environments throughout the world.
“For us in Africa, conflicts threaten our regional stability and economic progress. Terrorism, drug trafficking and small arms trafficking are also some of our concerns that transcend our national borders. Other problems such as resource depletion, rapid population growth, environmental degradation, new infectious diseases and uncontrolled refugee migration also have important implications for our security.
Source: The Guardian
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