What Nigeria must do to end security challenges – Dogara

The former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has highlighted the critical steps that the Nation must take to end the security challenges facing the country.

Dogara said that the electoral system should be rejigged to ensure the emergence of credible leaders.

Dogara who was a keynote speaker at House of Justice Annual Summit in Kaduna on the theme: Leadership, Governance and National Security, said “Clear and sustainable policies must be evolved to tailor development that has human face with poverty alleviation as the measure for determining policy success or failure.

“Government must continue to adopt deliberate policies to enhance the rapid development of the private sector by establishing industrial clusters and enhancing the agricultural value chain to put food on the table of citizens, create jobs, reduce unemployment and ensure even development,” he said.

He opined that the sanctions provided for in the Electoral Act should be activated to deal with electoral fraud and instill public confidence in the process.

“The National security architecture must be reformed to remove the existing rigid centralisation and allow for more rapid deployment while at the same time insulating it from abuse,” Dogara said.

“The National security architecture must be deployed proactive rather than reactively as is the present situation,” he added.

The ex-speaker who was worried by the level of injustice said that the full weight of the constitutional provision for Federal Character in conjunction with the provisions of the Federal Character (Establishment etc.) Act and the inherent powers of the legislature should be brought to bear on its implementation to ensure equity and justice to all. “With the sanctions provided for under the charge of non-justifiability should be rested.”

Dogara believed that the police to population ratio should be enhanced “as a matter of great urgency while training and motivation should be stepped up. All public as well as private sector regulatory bodies should ensure that the tenets of good governance are strictly observed in their respective spheres.”

“The farmer-herder challenge must be handled in a manner that promotes cohabitation as was previously the case and criminality seeking to hide under the guise of religion and culture must be isolated and dealt with decisively and fairly. Nigerians must accept the reality that the Herder problem is not a Fulani problem alone, it is a Nigerian problem. Unless we elevate it to the level we elevated the Niger Delta militancy question and deal with it as a National problem, I am afraid, we will never find a solution to the problem.”