By Aliyu DANLADI
Rimamnde Shawulu, Chairman, House of Reps. Committee on Army, says reforming the police and judicial systems is the antidote to security challenges in the country
Shawulu (PDP-Taraba) made the remark on Thursday, at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) 2019 Security Forum on ”Insecurity in Nigeria: Challenges and Recommendations” held in Abuja.
According to him, my understanding of what is happening in Nigeria is that the state has been so weakened.
”Institutions of state have been so weakened that they are not effectively doing what they should be doing. And the weakness of the state institutions ensures that people commit crimes and they are not apprehended or penalised.
”Once that becomes the basis; today someone commits a very serious crime he is not penalised, it encourages the next person to do the same thing.
”So, we need to rebuild the policing and judicial systems in Nigeria in order to bring everyone under the law,” he said.
According to him, if we don’t rebuild our Nigerian state or rebuild our system, every other thing will not work.
”So, we need to reform the police and the judicial systems. If you check where we have the most violent crimes in the world, they correspond to where you have weak states and rotten police and judicial systems.
”People are not being brought to book, you don’t have enough security agencies to cover where they should,” he remarked.
The lawmaker, who represents Takum/Songs/Ussa/Special Area Federal Constituency, said the difference between a society that was secured and the one not secured was that the state had within a reasonable time, ability to contain violence or bring the perpetrators to justice.
”Our system is broken and that is why everyone is on his own,” he lamented.
Shawulu noted, ”where the system works, it takes care of the weakness of the leaders”, stressing that the country needed a strong system.
”Having a strong state means having strong institutions, not about having a strong man,” he said.
Also, Prof. Osita Osita, former Director General, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), who delivered a keynote address said: “security is development.”
”Without development, there can be no security.” he said.
He said the nation’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) would require a responsive tweak to speak to the nexus of peace, security and development- as well as that of violent conflicts, insecurity and under development and how they reinforced each other.
Osita said Nigeria could not contend with the insecurity in the country until the anti-corruption agencies collectively dug and unravelled the toxic connection between corruption proceeds and violent conflicts.
Also speaking, Resident Representative of KAS, a German foundation, Dr Vladimir Kreck, said the forum was organised to look into the security policy in the country and give recommendations for the new government on how best to tackle the challenges.====NAN
