By OSARETIN OSADEBAMWE

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has lent his voice to the call for a younger Nigerian president come 2023 to marshall a comprehensive and cohesive onslaught on insecurity in the country.

President Obasanjo said the older generation should concern itself with providing guidance and knowledge to younger national leaders than be in a competitive race with them to make Nigeria better.

He emphasized that old age comes with a wealth of experience and a reservoir of knowledge that can be tapped into by the younger energetic leaders.

Obasanjo said this at the 2022 Murtala Mohammed Foundation annual lecture, which took place at the Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua Centre, Abuja.

The former president who joined the lecture online said Nigeria insecurity challenge can be solved by deliberately working towards the elimination of Boko Haram, Kidnapping, hostage-taking and other forms of insecurities when it worked towards the 2030 date.

This he said could be actualized by determination, to stop insecurities particularly, Boko Haram in 2030 with the power of education and social inclusion.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said one of the inhibitions Nigeria has suffered in tackling Boko Haram, was the fact that the weapon supplying nation had insisted that certain weapons could only be used internally and not outside of Nigeria.

He told the participant at the lecture that, insecurities started immediately after the civil war because of the ease people could have access to weapons and Nigeria never come out of it since then, and have been suffering from it.

He noted that In 2011 he visited Maiduguri to find out about Boko Haram. It discovered what their objectives was, that they were interested in Sharia but complained that their lack of jobs among their followers.

He said that they sought to get jobs by legitimate means for their followers and the government was chasing them left right and centre.

Obasanjo said that at that time his contact, “the intermediary helping me to reach out to them” said there was an external connection that could be Nigerians who had resources abroad and could be sympathetic to them.

Obasanjo said efforts were made to prevent external support to the insurgency. However, that fear entertained of the Boko Haram linking with the Al-Qaeda movement was poorly handled.

“We couldn’t do that. So those outside with whom they are working has made the task more difficult to solve.

Obasanjo who said insecurities must be dealt with in Nigeria emphasized that “I believe the emphasis to be placed on education was not placed.

“With the population of Nigeria today standing at 215m and having a population of 15m children who are not in school, it has to be by carrot or by a stick. Those 15 million children not in school are Boko Haram in the next 10 to fifteen years. We must say that we do not want Boko Haram in 2030

“If we do not do anything about those 15 million children, not in school, we are already nurturing the Boko Haram of tomorrow. The nation must emphasize the collective approach to solve this challenge with education and social inclusion at all levels of government.” Obasanjo said.

He blamed the seeming poor result in fighting insurgency in the repeated strategy lacking new initiative as he said “why we are not succeeding with fighting or Boko Haram is because. We are doing the same thing all the time.

Education is a priority, important to get foreign investors and must be accompanied with building a just society, that everyone feels he has a stake in. He stated.

In his keynote address, Executive Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, pointed out that the Boko Haram and other associated insecurity issues of Kidnapping, terrorism, hostage-taking, farmer-herder conflicts in the context of insecurity was the nation’s severest test of national security since the civil war.

He said it was an amalgam of factors built up over the years across different administrations and time horizons.

Fayemi said the radical extremist violence symbolism by Boko Haram has been followed by organized, large scale frequent and recurrent banditry, kidnapping, and latterly, cultism all intertwined and tasked the national security.

Fayemi whose keynote addressed the theme: “Beyond Boko Haram, Addressing, Insurgency, Banditry and Kidnapping, Across Nigeria said it would be a historic betrayal for Nigeria to succumb to pressure and sentiments of division and dismemberment on a count of many difficulties that Nigeria has had to grapple with.

Fayemi called on Nigerians to confront the threat to national security and unity.

His words: “This is the time when the many Murtala among us, that army of committed citizens who refuse to give up on the Nigerian Idea and Ideal, so ably embodied by the late General, Must stand up and raise their voices in counterweights to Boko Haram.

He said the time he said had come for massive investment in public education, health care and programme to drive affordable housing and skills for navigating life in dignity and a meaningful bargain of life in being a Nigerian.

He noted that What was required was a comprehensive national response to the challenge of insecurity in the northeast instead of isolated responses, part of which would be to retool the public service as the warehouse of government policy with a full grasp of possible future challenges at state and federal level.

Fayemi urges the private sector to be alive to its shared responsibility of job creation for employment of the army of Nigerians to be able to douse the social tension which leads to vices among Nigerian, jobless able-bodied persons.

He said it was time for a new social compact, by ensuring the tooling of security services, pointing out that more needed to be done by our armed forces on tackling the issue of insecurity nationally.

During her introductory remarks Chief Executive Officer, Murtala Mohammed Foundation (MMF), Mrs Aisha Mohammed-Oyebode, said the foundation’s 20 years journey, has witnessed incredible work done with all partners to impact Nigerian lives.

According to her, the foundation boasts of providing over 500 scholarships while another 57,000 students were impacted on her computer for a school programme.

She pointed out that the military would have to design a programme that would positively impact the young angry members of conflict-ridden communities who are determined to secure their areas.

Her words: Young men in conflict communities are suffering and they have come to ask me where they can find guns. I tell them, I do not know, for these categories of young men, where can we have a programme in the military to cater for these groups, so that they can channel their anger and energy to defend themselves and Community.”

She said Nigeria should not ignore the effort of rural women who contributed to boosting the nation’s economy. Many of them, she noted, do not fly jets but have been engaged in cross border trade to sustain the economy.

The people who build our economy are the women who walk through the border to sell items that make our cross border trade thick. (Nigerian Tribune)

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