Nigeria won’t be blackmailed into not proscribing almajiri — NSA

The Muhammadu Buhari administration will not succumb to blackmail over its intention to proscribe the almajiri system of education, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, has said.

Monguno stated this on Wednesday during the launch of the new national security strategy document for 2019.
The ceremony took place inside the Aso Chamber of the Presidential Villa shortly before the commencement of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

While launching the national security road map, President Buhari said he remained fully and unreservedly committed to achieving a safer and more secure Nigeria.

He said the execution of the strategy as encapsulated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) was a task for all heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.

The president said: ‘‘Security is bottom-to-top cooperation. Failure at any level leads to a serious lapse in overall security.

‘‘I, therefore, call on all of you gathered here as Heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to see yourselves as stakeholders and partners in the onerous task of securing our people and to demonstrate the unity of purpose in implementing this strategy.”

President Buhari noted that the various security challenges confronting the country had made it necessary for the articulation of a comprehensive and coordinated response that involves all segments of society and all elements of national power.

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The president commended the NSA and his team for delivering the document, saying that he was pleased also to note that the strategy emerged from a broad-ranging participatory process that elicited contributions primarily from security, intelligence, law enforcement agencies and the Armed Forces.

He also acknowledged the contributions of other stakeholders such as MDAs and the civil society, adding that ‘‘this strategy will inform government-wide and society-wide measures designed to promote public safety and national security.’’

Speaking on his overview of the eight-chapter document, Monguno said: “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.

“The issue of illiteracy is directly linked to the issue of children not going to school, this Almajirai phenomenon which we have been talking about, we cannot continue to push it under the carpet because of 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.

“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.”

He pointed out that the strategy outlined the major security concerns of the nation for which policies and strategies have been articulated and how the government plans to deal with them.