Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

The Security Governance Initiative, a brainchild of former President Barack Obama of the United States met, on Tuesday,in Abuja, on Focus Area Two of the programme.

The Focus Area Two involved material acquisition involving the process of acquisition through transparency, accountability, and best practices.

The initiative centered around capacity building and processes in security procurement and needs assessment.

The event drew together, representatives of the Nigerian government and United States officials.

Recall that the Security Governance Initiative was designed as a partnership under which the United States and Nigeria would work together to address security challenges.

Speaking exclusively with Daily Sun, the National Coordinator of the Security Governance Initiative, Hon. Aliyu Gebi, said the initiative involved six countries handpicked by the Obama administration.

Gebi, a former Member of the House of Representatives, said the objective was to see how the United States could help in refining the nation’s security processes in terms of unbundling the internal security architecture, the soft component and repackaging it.

Gebi said: “It is an Obama initiative where they handpicked six countries to see how they can help in refining our processes, unbundling our internal security architecture, the soft component, repackaging it in terms of procurement, of need assessment, et cetera.”

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Gebi however said the initiative is unlike  any other initiative where the nation would be expecting material assistance.

Gebi added: “So, it is unlike any other initiative where we are expecting booths and shoe laces and guns and so on. No! This is all about capacity building and streamlining of processes.”

On the Focus Two Area, Gebi said it is all about material acquisition involving the process of acquisition through transparency, accountability, and best practices.

According to Gebi, “It is not about them buying weapons for us. No! It is about them teaching us or showing us how to streamline our process so that we don’t go through certain bottlenecks and we acquire the best that we can acquire from wherever we want to acquire.”

Focus Three of the initiative, Gebi said, is about the rebuilding of the Northeast Nigeria and how to coordinate the efforts, which he said, was added by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Gebi further said at the end of the initiative, Nigeria would be expecting a final doctrine, a streamline doctrine that would state clearly from A to Z what needed to be done in terms of security sector reform.