From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The Nigeria Society for Criminology has advocated knowledge-based intervention and synergy among all levels of government to effectively tackle security challenges regarding the progress of the country.
The group made the call on Monday at a webinar entitled “Criminology and Contemporary Security Challenges in Nigeria”. Papers on different aspects of crime, social problems and security management were presented on the occasion.
The speakers include a foremost criminologist, Prof Kayode Adedeji; former Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), University of Ibadan, Prof Adeyinka Aderinto; including Prof Emmanuel Gyong, Dr Ezeji Chiji, and Dr Phillip Ndubueze.
Prof Adedeji, in his introductory remarks during the webinar, asked President Muhammadu Buhari, state governors and local government chairmen to rescue Nigeria from what he described as ‘grip of destructive forces of criminality.’
The government, he said, seemed unable to tackle the problems of insecurity, partly due to inadequacy of knowledge or due to the fire brigade approach usually employed in addressing issues in Nigeria.
He urged members of the society to make findings of their researches available to policy actors as their contribution towards ending the spate of insecurity.
The former DVC, academics, UI, Aderinto, also delivered a paper with the theme: ‘Historical and Contemporary Overview of Security Challenges in Nigeria. He traced the origin of contemporary insecurity to the trust gap, injustice, which birthed ethnic agitations and kidnapping in the Niger-Delta region.
‘Despite years of independence, insecurity is still Nigeria’s biggest challenge and is fast becoming Nigeria’s identity. Although the origin of security challenges in the country cannot be clearly ascertained. It is researched to have started after the civil war… The 1966 Coup and the resultant civil war. The distrust that emanated from these experiences provided strong currents, driving insecurity today and many ethnic agitations have arisen many decades after the war. This is further worsened by the downturn in the economic fortunes of the country following the end of the oil boom in the 1980s,’ he said.
Aderinto asked the government to deal with the root causes of insecurity to end the present social problem, which he argued is costing the diversion of money ideally meant for developmental purposes to provide security.
He noted that crimes are local and that the “government alone cannot surmount the problem, because all problems are local. A synergy of all levels of government will do a lot to end the problem.”
Prof Gyong, and Dr Chiji and Dr Ndubueze emphasised the need for intelligence-led policing, good governance founded on justice, accountability and due process, and the use of technology in curbing modern security threats.
Earlier, renowned criminologist, Prof Etannibi Alemika, had stated that criminological knowledge and researches are needed more than ever before to assist the country in navigating the contemporary security challenges adding that evidence-based scientific interventions will be useful in formulating the right security policies.