TheCable

Garba Wahab, director-general, Nigerian Army Resources Centre (NARC), says allowing traditional rulers and local government councils to function optimally will reduce insecurity at the grassroots.

Wahab spoke on Saturday while presenting a paper titled ‘Security a Collective Responsibility’ at the 44th annual general meeting of the Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI).

He said solving security challenges would be most effective at the local level, adding that government interference in traditional institutions and local councils is weakening their ability to discharge their roles effectively.

“To address insecurity, we need to go to the grassroots, the local government, because we want everybody to be involved at the local government level,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“People know themselves and so we need to get that clear and the governors should and must allow local governments, 774 of them, to function and perform effectively.

“If that is done, it becomes easier for us to get people to be involved and you cannot do that without the traditional institutions because they command so much respect within their localities.”

The director-general said impunity fuels crime as long as people know there won’t be consequence for their action.

He called on Nigerians to challenge the status quo, adding that once there are structures to monitor and punish those who don’t perform their assigned responsibilities, things will be better.

“So you must take steps that will make sure that everybody is involved in security, which is a collective responsibility,” he said.

In a goodwill message, Darlington Abdullahi, the president, Alumni Association of Defence College (ANDEC), said the nation’s security challenges require all stakeholders to agree on the best approach to solve them.

Abdullahi said even though a lot had been done in that direction, more still needed to be done to make Nigeria peaceful.