Gentlemen of the Press:
The security situation in the country is perhaps today the biggest single issue that faces the nation. It is one issue that has over time continued to worsen and it is one issue that is about to ground the whole country. The one decade boko haram insurgency has sapped the human and material resources of the Federal and State governments and has yet remained protracted.
The rural banditry, previously localized has now spread all over the country, particularly the North, taking heavy tolls and displacing an increasing number of citizens. The Kidnapping for ransom phenomenon has become a strong industry defying solutions.
The ethno-religious crises and the farmer-harder conflicts are not abating. The urban violence perpetrated by the increasing army of unemployed youth continue to strike terror in the
urban residents and continue to hold urban communities under siege.
Meanwhile the efforts of the security agencies have not come to much. Insurgency continues with heavy casualties on the military formations. Rural banditry has been raging and expelling hundreds daily. Every other security challenge has been on the increase. Assurances by the
security agencies have become increasingly hollow. The military are over stretched, being deployed in over 30 States. Having lost hope, many communities are resorting to self-help.
This means that various communities are securing their own weapons and organizing their defences. This creates a whole new dimension to the security crisis, for it leads to further proliferation of small arms among citizens and irredeemably leads to anarchy. Once anarchy sets in it leads to total breakdown of law and order and as with other Africa Countries it
takes a whole generation to recover.
We therefore believe that the efforts of the security agencies need to be boosted by a robust and coordinated community support. These and many such considerations prompted us to
start a wide consultation as to the way out of this imbroglio.
Following these consultations we at the ARDP decided to call for a conference on Northern security to do a thorough analysis of the various security challenges and get the experts to provide solutions particularly the
coordination and the regulation of the community responses.
A number of other peace and the Sir Ahmadu Bello development platforms are joining us on this venture, primarily Foundation and the Savanna Centre Diplomacy, Democracy and Development. This conference will hold on July 1 and 2, 2019, at the Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation conference
hall here in Kaduna.
The first day of the conference will be a technical session which will start with briefings and then breakout in two parallel sessions. A break out syndicate session of top experts and
academics and an interactive session where field situation reports will be taken and different community responses will be discussed.
In the second day of the conference, the plenary of the conference will receive the reports of the syndicate group and listen to the good will messages of community leaders, religious
leaders and political leaders that have been invited. After the conference a committee will be constituted to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the implementations of the decisions of the
conference.
Thank you.
Usman Bugaje
Convenor ARDP
