The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa, has called for active involvement of youths in the fight against the security challenges co fronting the nation.
Musa made the call at the National Security Summit organised by the Green Assembly Initiative in collaboration with Nigeria Youth Organisations, on Thursday in Abuja.
The CDS was represented by the Chief of Defence Policy and Plans, AVM Abraham Adole.
The theme of the summit is “Curbing Insecurity in Nigeria Achieving a Robust and Sustainable Economy for a New Nigeria Youths Inclusivity in Nation Building”.
Musa said that the youths play critical role in shaping the security landscape of the nation and manage the complex and volatile global security environment of the times.
He said that Nigeria, had been grappling with multifaceted security issues that had cast shadows on its economic activities.
He added that terrorism, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, farmer herders, clashes, separatist agitation, militancy and transactional crimes had become pervasive elements, underscoring the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the security challenges facing the nation.
According to him, collaboration amongst stakeholders and active involvement of the youths are imperative to forge the necessary synergy in our collective pursuits to curb insecurity in Nigeria.
“This underscores the compelling need now more than ever to adopt a holistic and multi agency approach.
“Such an approach will enable all stakeholders to bring about their core competencies and resources to bank combating these ink securities comprehensively.
“The results will be sustainable peace and stability, thereby creating an enabling environment for socio economic development to thrive.
“In this pursuit, I wish to emphasise the indispensable role of our youths.
“Your energy idealism and a unique perspective make you a powerful force for social change.
“I unequivocally consider the youth a critical stakeholder in curbing the insecurities in our country, Nigeria.
“Beyond conventional rules, the youth can actively contribute to intelligence gathering, community engagement, and the integration of technology solution in our security measures,” he said.
The Director-General, Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC), retired Maj.-Gen. Garba Wahab, said that Nigeria must manage large youth population in the country to avoid future disaster for us in the future.
Wahab spoke in the topic, “Role of Youth in Curbing Insecurity, Unemployment, Illiteracy and Drug Abuse”.
He said the diversity of the nation should be seen as a major strength, adding that the nation’s population was expected explode by 2050.
He said that the collaboration of the youth and people around the general area was to address the issue of insecurity confronting the various parts of the country .
According to him, the youth must be encouraged to be part of the security architecture in Nigeria.
The Minister, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, said that FCT also had challenges of kidnapping, vehicular borne crime, popularly called one chance among the identified threats to the residents and peace of the nation’s capital.
Wike, who was represented by the Director of Account and Finance, Mrs Ebere Moluko, said the administration had been able to nip some of the security challenges in the bud through a robust synergy among the various security agencies.
He said the government was still working to ensuring that all residents of the FCT sleep with their two eyes closed.
According to him, since there is a nexus between youth unemployment and crime and criminality, the relevant arms of the FCT administration are working on providing intervention programs which will create employment.
“The FCT administration appreciate the pride of place the youth occupy in nation building and as such have been engaging with different youth groups to be able to actualise the pillars of the renewed hope agenda.
“The administration is active on the media to create necessary awareness to the residents, thus a slogan to fight crime is “No gree for Criminality”.
“In FCT we encourage, we encourage the residents to make use of emergency numbers provided by both the FCT Police Command control room and the FCT call Centre,” he said.
The Convener of the Summit and Chairman, Green Assembly Initiative, Mr Duke Alamboye, said the summit was a platform designed mostly to alert security agencies and government on the need to start including youths in the fight against insecurity.
He said that most of the criminal activities were being perpetrated by the youth constituency in the country, adding that the challenges could be tackled by interacting with them.
He said the organisation would be gathering data of almost 75,000 youths in the country which would be forwarded to the government to use as volunteers to fight insecurity, intelligence and physical combat.
“We all know that there’s shortage in manpower in the service and so we need more hands on deck.
“So we need to have this done and know the way forward in terms of fighting insecurity,” he said. (NAN)
By Sumaila Ogbaje
