UniAbuja VC blames poor intelligence gathering, political class for Nigeria’s security crisis

The Vice Chancellor of University of Abuja, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, has blamed Nigeria’s security agencies and the political class for not doing enough to halt the growing insecurity in the country.

Prof. Na’Allah apportioned the blame while speaking at the formal launch of the University’s Centre for Security and Legal Studies and Symposium on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to the VC, the current near state of anomie in the country is due to the inability to mobilise or gather security intelligence by the state actors.

The symposium was themed “Kinetic and non kinetic application in the fight against insecurity in Nigeria.”

According to him, the lapses on the parts of key players to avert abductions or destruction of lives and properties by criminal elements, was a total disgrace to the country and the academia.

Prof Na’Allah, also blamed the university given its failure to explore research and collaboration with security agencies to proffer workable solutions to bring insurgency, banditry, kidnappings and other crimes to an end.

He therefore, challenged both military and civilian institutions to critically explore the potentials of research to help Nigeria survive what he described as “unprecedented threats and crisis of insecurity,” through the use of digital technology and intelligence.

Referencing the United States of America, Prof Na’Allah maintained that with the level of synchronization, data gathering and sharing between all security apparatus after the twin bombing of the World Trade Centre, it was almost impossible for such a coordinated attack to happen on U.S soil again

He said: “We have a lot of lessons to learn, we have a lot of work to do. We must sit down in our laboratories to think through the current challenges we have in our nation how figure out how Nigerians can go about their businesses without fear. We can’t mobilise intelligence to know what is going to happen the next hour, its a total failure.

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“How can we have a nation where today its bomb, tomorrow its crisis, in front of our military is bomb, innocent people going about their businesses are kidnapped, ransom paid, its a total disgrace to us as a nation, to our political leaders and the university. We have not been able to work together to communicate a solution that will assist this nation enjoy the peace that it deserves.

“The birth of this Centre is a challenge this university is throwing to all our military institutions and civilian institutions that we must come together to get through this war of the 21st century which cannot be understood like the wars of yesterday. We must begin to look at our environment, our culture, daily habits and religion because they are so important what we should do.

“The centre is focused on bringing in research to address the issues of security and the strategies to deploy. There are so many questions to be asked before we can win this war and so we need to sit together and proffer a solution. We can’t survive this insecurity without bringing everyone on board.

“Any nation that surmounts its problem is because of the university and its time Nigeria realises that so we need to set aside enough funds for research. Universities are ready and we must work together.”

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