Our approach to ending poverty, insecurity wrong — Gov Sani

Gov. Uba Sani of Kaduna State, has said poverty and insecurity are the greatest challenges confronting Nigeria, saying political leaders approach to ending the malaises have been wrong.

The governor spoke at the 6th Annual Interfaith Peace Conference in partnership with the Kaduna State government.

The theme of the conference was “Tackling Poverty and Insecurity in Nigeria: Our Collective Responsibility”.

Governor Sani, who was the chairman of the occasion, noted that poverty and insecurity were the greatest challenges facing the country, adding that these challenges were a major source of concern to the country’s political leader.

He, however, said efforts at ending insecurity have been rather reactive than proactive.

He said, “Poverty and insecurity are the greatest challenges facing our country. The rising level of poverty is a major cause of concern for our political leaders.

Addressing the issue of poverty is critical to restoring people’s confidence in our democracy. We are still struggling to address development challenges, especially in the areas of infrastructure, education, health, agriculture and security.”

He said the time was ripe for all stakeholders to join hands to address the challenges, saying the starting point for offering solutions to the problems must be research and evidence based.

“Research has a key role to play in our search for workable solutions to the seemingly intractable challenges of insecurity. Once you know the root cause of the problem, you can develop effective immediate, short-term and long-term strategies to address it. Our responses have been ad hoc and reactive. They are not based on research. Our compass is wrong. We need to get the right compass.

“To make progress on security, we must ask the critical questions and develop the appropriate strategies. How can we redesign our security architecture to be proactive rather than reactive in tackling insecurity in Nigeria? This is where strategic thinking comes in. Security leaders and forces are better at tactical thinking. They want to deal with situations quickly and decisively. But the nature of our current and emerging security challenges require deeper thinking and planning. You have to study the nature of a given environment; the topography, the people, the culture, the politics and the changing dynamics,” the governor added.

The Secretary-General of the Jama’atu Nasir Islam (JNI), Prof. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel C. Okoh both decried the rising poverty and insecurity in the land.