Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has said that insecurity is a major challenge globally as there is hardly any continent without its own peculiar socio-economic issues.
Mr Akeredolu said this on Thursday in Akure at the Ondo State Security Summit 2019 with the theme: “Improving Security Architecture in Ondo State for Sustainable Peace and Development.”
“Poverty, occasioned by incessant warfare, inclement climatic conditions, unproductive economies in a competitive and unfriendly ambience and above all, visionless leadership, make the geo-political space occupy an unenviable position in global affairs.
“The combination of these factors had engendered insecurity. There is hardly any part of the continent that is totally free of crises.
“Nigeria, our dear country, has had her own share of this existential burden, a phenomenon usually associated with most transitional societies. Socio-economic crises have ensured that the country slips from one crisis to another.
“The deplorable situation often compels and uncritical and, most times, erroneous conclusion, which suggests lack of capacity to appreciate the enormity of these challenges by the political leadership,” Akeredolu said.
The governor added that the understanding of insecurity as a global challenge would assist the state to adopt the right measures to combat the menace appropriately.
“Our state awaits, eagerly, recommendations from this great gathering, which without doubt, will contribute significantly to the security of lives and property.
“It will also scale up our index on the Ease of Doing Business,” he said.
A professor of Criminology, Prof. Femi Odekunle, in his lecture on the theme, suggested among others, the establishment of an advisory social-science based ‘State Crime Prevention and Control’ body.
He explained that the body would be for articulation and coordination of the objectives of crime prevention/control instrumentalities in the state as well for crime/criminal justice administration data collation/analysis and production for regular inputs into the state’s development and security planning.
