By Janet John, LAFIA
A non-governmental organisation, Accountability Lab Nigeria says it is collaborating with stakeholders in Nasarawa State to find urgent and lasting solution to the country’s security challenges.
Mr Alfred Alu, the Male Associate of the NGO said this on Friday at the group’s meeting with stakeholders in Lafia, the State capital.
Alu explained that the meeting was organised to create opportunity for stakeholders to bring innovations that would restore peace in different parts of the country.
He said the organisation had engaged stakeholders in Nasarawa, Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna, Kasina and Adamawa states to help in finding solution to insecurity in the country.
According to him, the project is sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to achieve Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals on peace, justice and strong institutions.
“As part of the project, we selected 20 stakeholders from each of the states to make presentation on peace.
“We just concluded the one for the state and the winner has emerged.
“Winners from every state among the seven states would meet to compete for us to select the best, whose peace innovation would be adopted for implementation,” Alu added.
He said the overall winner would be part of the organisation’s accountability incubator phase. “The winner’s ideas would be presented to higher stakeholders that will help to include them in the country’s security architecture.
The winner in the state, Caleb Odonye, expressed joy that his presentation was considered the best among other participants.
Odonye said his security model would help to restore peace in the country, if properly implemented.
He recommended that every secondary school leaver and graduate of tertiary institutions in every community be profiled and included in the security architecture.
He opined that the measure would help in intelligence gathering in order to arrest criminals even before they carryout their plans.
“By this, those engaged would be given stipends and kept busy.“It would cut the recruitment poll of the criminal elements in the country, thereby reducing crime,” Odonye said.
He also said the initiative would help the communities to take ownership of their security and make the youths unavailable for crime.
Present at the event were representatives of the state Police Command and Nigeria Security and Defense Corps in the state, among others.
