The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, has emphasised the need for enhanced community involvement in tackling the persistent security issues afflicting the nation. News Agency of Nigeria reports.
Speaking through Dr. Jabbi Kilgore, the District Head of Kingori, during a town hall event organised by the Kukah Centre for Peace in collaboration with Global Right, an NGO, on Tuesday in Sokoto, Abubakar highlighted the importance of community representatives’ engagement in finding solutions to these challenges.
The Sultan identified factors like bad governance, injustice, and inequality as contributors to the prevailing insecurity. He called upon leaders at all levels to exercise fairness in their interactions with the populace, recognizing their accountability for their actions beyond this life.
Bishop Mathew Kukah, in his keynote address, concurred with Abubakar’s views, highlighting religious intolerance, fanaticism, and injustice as contributing factors to the insecurity in the country.
Kukah stressed that sectionalism, religious intolerance, and injustice play a significant role in exacerbating insecurity, and he urged all stakeholders present at the meeting to unite in addressing this menace. He underscored that the issue of insecurity transcends religious boundaries.
The event brought together leaders from various sectors to engage in constructive discussions aimed at fostering a unified approach to curbing security challenges in Nigeria.
Earlier, Gov. Ahmad Aliyu of Sokoto state, represented by the Permanent Secretary Ministry for Religious Affairs, Alhaji Abubakar Torankawa reiterated the commitment of the government to partner with groups and associations in promoting peaceful coexistence in the state.
The Sokoto state commissioner of police, Ali Kaigama, also emphasised on the need for public support to community policing drives initiated by the Nigerian Police.
Kaigama said the police will continue to partner with the Nigerian army and other sister security agencies in tackling insecurity in the country.
In his presentation, Prof. Tukur Baba, the Dean Faculty of Social Sciences in Federal University Birnin Kebbi, dwelled on factors that promoted insecurity from pre-independence.
Baba advised authorities to change the land use act, taxations and consider global, regional, national and community approaches to holistically deal with the problems of insecurity.
He described the assessment by the National Bureau of Statics revealing the poverty index as glaring.
“This is the effect of insecurity, maladministration and poor people attitude in the northwest,” he said.
Also, the Executive Secretary of Zaki’s GEM Foundation and Permanent Secretary Sokoto state Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Dr Nafisa Zaki and Hajia A’isha Dantsoho, called on authorities to promote gender equitable norms, inclusiveness and budgeting in all dealings.
The leader of the community dialogue committee and District Head of Gagi, Alhaji Sani Umar-Jabbi, presented a graphic community involvement drive to solve religious misconceptions, gender-based violence and other associated society ills.
Umar-Jabbi solicited for more support in recognition of committee achievements in Sokoto state stressing that violence is rooted in poverty and ignorance while its effect affects everyone irrespective of religious beliefs, ethnicity and political groups.
