How to end insecurity in Nigeria, by ex-presidential aspirant

A former presidential candidate, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has proffered new measures Nigeria must introduce to surmount current security challenges bedeviling the country.

Speaking with newsmen Thursday in Abuja, Olawepo-Hashim   said to solve the problem of insecurity, Nigeria must have a defence cooperative agreement, decentralize the police force, and create a national guard with specific tasks.

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He said Nigeria must also establish a special force that can rescue kidnapped victims without paying a ransom, and address some serious ethical issues.

He explained that Nigeria as a democratic nation can initiate some legislative frameworks and strategies that could usher in new measures to end the deteriorating insecurity in the land.

“We must have a defence cooperative agreement that is aimed at stabilizing the successes while we rebuild our security architecture, in the sense that some of the issues that we are dealing with are transnational in nature.

“We have all kinds of insurgents pouring in from Libya, Chad, Mali and you have migration issues that have to do with climate change. Some of them are bandits who go into mines to do illegal activities. These are very complex issues,” he said.

He said the Nigerian Army has played a stabilizing role “but this is a new challenge, it is a new war, a translational war. We need some jobs to do in terms of equipment, in terms of doctrine.”

“We need to decentralize the police because some of the things that the army does are actually things that could be done by the police.  We have an over-centralized police force right now.  We need to have local government police; we need to have state police as well,” he said, adding: “We are overstretching and overusing the army.  Nigeria is now ripe for a national guard. We need an intermediate force between the police and the army that is a bit higher than the army in terms of the training, in terms of equipment, in terms of its capacity.