By By Ademola Ajao
THE lead speaker of the University of Ibadan (UI) Senior Staff Club Discussion Panel, Professor Isaac Albert from the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (UI), has affirmed that knowledge does not drive problem solving in Nigeria.
University of Ibadan main gate
The affirmation was made on Thursday while making a paper presentation titled “Security in Nigeria: Where we were, Where we are and Where we want to be” at the third edition of the University of Ibadan Senior Staff Club Discussion Panel, which took place at the Main Bar, Senior Staff Club, University of Ibadan.
He further explained that professionals are not invited to where decisions are made. “People just decide that this is what we want to do, and that is why we are where we are.”
Professor Albert emphasised that we are yet to have a situation where our leaders will confess to us about what is really happening. Without security, it is impossible to achieve anything as a nation, noting that our leaders must be very serious about our security management.
In his words: “When you go to Israel, national security is not politicised. Nigeria is not surviving today because we have politicised national security. We have turned it into ethnic and religious issues.
“All the ingredients of the survival of a country we do not have, so it is only God that is holding Nigeria. When you interact with an average Nigerian leader, he is either thinking of the next election or the next billion he is going to make.”
The first discussant, Professor Nelson Fashina from the Department of English (UI), who is also the Deputy Commandant General of the Nigeria Forest Security Service (NFSS), reiterated that he has been engaged with the NFSS for 15 years. In his words: “Why I came into it is the fact that as a youth at the age of ten years I began to explore the concept of security via my traditional experience and exposure to the Yoruba indigenous knowledge production system.
“Christianity actually repressed me and diverted my attention as I was growing up, and they said that what I was doing was a sin, but having matured and getting out of the country I began to see that protecting myself is not a sin.”
Speaking on why the traditional security system is failing, he said it is not working because “in our own context, we believe in ranks, and that is the problem of the traditional security system in Nigeria.
“For example, from constables to inspectors, those are the people that do the work. From DSP and above are just involved in the supervisory role; they don’t do anything apart from that. This is the reason why the traditional security system is failing.
“We don’t need high ranks. Let us recruit people that are able and capable in their thousands and let them take charge of the forest. What we need is to explore our indigenous traditional system.”
The second discussant, Colonel M.L. Williams, Director of Education from the 2nd Mechanised Division, Odogbo Barracks, Ojoo, Ibadan, while making his presentation, said: “We always talk about foreign assistance. They will never fight for us.
“They will come here and offer little assistance. They will not hit the ground and work with us. That is why I said even if we continue to ask for foreign assistance, what are we doing inside? What is our own impact?”
Speaking on the success recorded in Maiduguri, he noted that the local vigilantes were very helpful. He advised that they should work alongside the military in the other states of Nigeria, adding that the Nigerian military has been working tirelessly from the lower ranks to the highest ranks.
“When talking about national security, there must be national interest. What is the interest of the nation? It’s really very pathetic! Security should be everybody’s business. If we don’t sit together and come up with a strategic, well-designed, coordinated plan to work things out, we are deceiving ourselves.”
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