Ex-Senate President’s aide, Onogu wants academic solution to insecurity in Nigeria

The Chief Press Secretary to the former Senate President in the 8th National Assembly, Mr. Sanni Onogu said the level of insecurity in Nigeria was such that needed ideas of academic community to solve.

He said the academics should play a role in contributing ideas and map out strategies that would help government solve security challenges, which he said, was a way of contributing to national development.

Onogu, an alumni of Auchi Polytechnic and the President of Auchi Polytechnic Alumni Association, APAA, Abuja Chapter stated this at the maiden annual lecture/awards held at the International Conference Centre, on Saturday in Abuja.

He urged members of the association to be proud of the school which has immensely generated manpower over the years that could be found in every strata of the society in Nigeria and abroad doing well in their various fields of endeavours, stressing that they would sustain and promote the image of the school anywhere in the world.

“As graduates and proud brand ambassadors of the No. 1 Polytechnic in Nigeria and the West African subregion, Auchi Polytechnic Auchi, our role among others is to promote and sustain the image and dizzying heights that the school.

“Auchi Polytechnic has attained in producing very competent, versatile, technically savvy and administratively proficient manpower who are today contributing immensely to the growth and development of the country using the knowledge acquired from school as bedrock in the various professional services they daily render across the industries, construction, management, government and social strata of the society and beyond.”

While calling on younger generations desiring for qualitative education to look towards Auchi Polytechnic, he said: “This event is to help showcase Auchi Polytechnic as a citadel of choice for those who desire qualitative education rendered in a conducive and peaceful environment and with cutting-edge technology and highly experienced and qualified lecturers.”

Also, in a paper presentation at the occasion by a guest lecturer, Professor Monday Joy Omoregie titled: “National Security, role of academics”, he submitted that all forms of crimes in Nigeria today were as old as the nation’s return to democracy, but have assumed an alarming stage in the contemporary times.

He said, schools across the country have become targets of attacks with devastating casualties, but added that it was time the educational sector play its role by offering qualitative education and security related courses.

Prof. Omoregie said: “From the year 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic governance, the country has been bedeviled with communal, ethnic, terrorist and religious violence. There also exist in the history of Nigeria, some irredentists, fraudsters, burglars, armed robbers, groups such as Maitasine in Kano, militant groups in the Niger Delta and South Eastern regions.

“However, the situation has assumed a dangerous and annihilating dimension with emergence of insurgence in groups like the Boko Haram, ISWAP, terrorists, bandits, and worrying dimensions, of herders/farmers crisis among others.

“Academic institutions have not been left out of these insecurity challenges facing the country. Several educational institutions have been attacked, lecturers kidnapped and killed, students kidnapped for ransom with some killed in the gruesome manner.

“The academics under the umbrella of the educational sector have a role to play in overcoming these challenges facing the Nigerian nation with respect to insecurity.

The academic don lamented that insecurity has defied all known solutions to the extent that no day passed without kidnappings, killings and abductions which the citizens have come to accept as normal.