Northern states are set to hold a two-day conference to x-ray the security challenges ravaging the region and find lasting solutions to them.
The conference, slated for June 18 and 19 in Kaduna, is being convened under the auspices of Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP).
In a statement, the convener of ARDP, Dr. Usman Bugaje, said the need to organise the conference became imperative following the rise in insecurity in the North and other parts of the country.
He added that the conference would bring together Northern community leaders, youth and women leaders, academics and security experts to undertake in depth study of the situation and proffer community-driven solutions to the menace.
According to Bugaje, “The alarming deterioration of the security situation in the country and the Northern states in particular, is today very glaring. The increasing helplessness of the national security institutions, especially their inability to respond timely and adequately is conspicuously manifest. That the prognosis is becoming increasingly gloomy and scary is also fairly obvious.
“The scale of the loss of human lives and property, the trauma on the national psyche is both unprecedented and unbearable. Already miscreants have started taking laws into their hands which is taking us on the path of anarchy. In the face of this national disaster, political leadership appears to have abdicated its responsibility to protect lives and property of citizens.
“In these circumstances, no responsible citizens will fold arms and continue to lament in the comfort and company of friends and relatives.
“The ARDP, with the support, understanding and collaboration of Pan-Northern platforms has, therefore, decided to call for a two-day conference on the security situation in the country, especially the North. This conference is designed to consider and organise coordinated community response to the protracted security impasse that has bedevilled all of us for some time now.”
