NSA: If We Don’t End Almajiri Now, It Will Come Back To Bite Us

Babagana Monguno, national security adviser (NSA), says the
government cannot afford to keep extending the phasing out of the
Almajiri system of education in Nigeria.

Speaking at the launch of the revised national security strategy
for 2019 on Wednesday, Monguno said if the system is allowed to
persist, “it will come back to bite us big time”.

The national security strategy was launched in 2014 and it is
reviewed every five years.

In June, Monguno said the federal government was considering
proscribing the system to ensure that no child is deprived of basic
education.

“The issue of illiteracy is directly linked to the issue of
children not going to school, this Almajiri phenomenon which we
have been talking about, we cannot continue to push it under the
carpet because what? Eventually, it will come back to bite us in
the butt big time, we need to deal with this issue and it is the
responsibility of all of us to try and take care of this issue
without any inhibition,” the NSA said.

He also said insecurity in the country is tied to international
influence, adding that both internal and external factors have
combined to result in “a complex constellation of threat and risk
to all of us”.

He said the revised strategy is designed to tackle the root
causes of insecurity, education and healthcare challenges.

“The issue of insurgency in the northeast is directly linked to
the issue of terrorism in the Sahel which is an increasingly
volatile neighbourhood and the situation is also derived from what
is happening in Libya which in turn is affected by the lack of
security Syria which derived its own situation ultimately from
Iraq,” he said.

“Now when we look at the issue of farmers and pastoralists
perpetual conflict, it is also linked to the influx of armed groups
and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons across porous
borders. In our own case, we are talking of some 4,040 kilometers
of land borders. Again, when you look at the upsurge in armed
banditry, it is part of the sphere of transnational organised crime
which is affecting us. And looking at the Niger delta situation,
basically, the activities of criminal gangs in the Niger Delta are
equally linked to pipeline vandalism, oil theft, piracy and sea
robbery in the Gulf of Guinea.

“Now, what the strategy does is to look at our national security
objectives and align these objectives with this administration’s
goals in fighting corruption, giving access to improved education,
taking care of the healthcare problems as well as increased
productivity in the agriculture sector. But rooted in the strategy
are issues that may not be visible to the necked eyes, but issues
that have tended to be malignant to cause a lot of greater problems
to this society.

“Fundamentally, if we are going to take care of these problems,
we need to try and safeguard the fast-growing young population of
Nigeria and guess what? We need to look at issues of poverty
eradication and illiteracy. I will tell you one thing. The
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in its pursuit for
greater and enhanced security will not allow itself to be
blackmailed or handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of compliance
with certain aspects that are socio-cultural in nature which people
tend to be adverse to dealing. We must grab the bull by the horn
and deal with these issues.”

Speaking further on the revised strategy, Monguno said a
committee of experts was constituted and tasked with the duty of
revising the 2014 edition so as to tackle evolving trends of
security threats.

According to him, the revised strategy places emphasis on human
security as against the existing “state-centric orientation”.

“It addresses the current threats faced by the Nigerian nation
as well as those threats that are anticipated to emerge in the near
future. We have also proffered appropriate strategy to address
these threats which demand a whole of government approach in
combination with a whole of nation to achieve a whole of societal
approach in dealing with these challenges,” he said.

“The core philosophy of this strategy is human security. This is
a shift from the state-centric orientation we have been used to, to
a new paradigm in which the safety and wellbeing of the individual
citizens are the primary bases for all national security measures.
And this is what I call the Muhammadu Buhari approach to National
Security.”