The Friday attack on Paris by a terror group is an eye opener and a call for International concern. Whereas, acts of terror by anyone anywhere is a threat to everyone in every nation,The International community especially the World’s super powers have always been laid back concerning terror in Africa.

However, attack on Paris is a further indicator that no part of the world is isolated from acts of terrorism.

As we join the rest of the World to mourn the victims of Friday attack, African leaders must come to terms with the fact that Africans will be the one to solve Africa’s problem. To wait for the rest of the world is to say the least that we are not ready to fix Africa’s problem; for it’s Africans that under-developed Africa.

Juxtaposing the French attack and the response of the rest of the World ,the patriotic resolve of Parisians to stand tall with their Government in solidarity vis-à-vis our own response to Boko Haram, You will agree with me that there is so much to be done about Our  National security, Our National life,  our Patriotism and commitment as a Nation.

Whereas, within three (3) hours, the police force in Paris was able to rescue victims and in Twenty- Four (24) hours, the police force in Paris was able to provide evidence base-link with those involved in the attack between Paris, Belgium and the rest of Europe,  one-year after in Nigeria, we are still searching for the missing 250 Chibok girls.  Sadly , the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign have gone to sleep perhaps after achieving the political undertone for which they were set up. Such clarion call seemly mimicking patriotism should have been kept alive if not driven by political idiosyncrasy.

Our leadership must view the Paris experience as a stand up call to do more in protecting our National borders. The continuous massacre of innocent citizens by Boko Haram terrorist group is a litmus test on our National security and Mr President and his Security team must be more pro-active than ever before.

 

 The question that comes to mind as I ponder over resolving our National security challenge in terms of terrorism, kidnapping and corruption is that we must first of all shake off the toga of Partisan politics, Religion bickering, Tribalism and Regionalism from our polity. We must begin to think about broad Nationalism, True Federalism and committed patriotism.

Being pro active will mean that we take steps that will move our national life into the direction of great nations, we must first of all address the issue of our national data base, we should be able to look at who is who?, who is where?. And who got where? At all times One way to go is fusing the immigration with national identical management commission with the view to producing a single document that is tandem with the data page of our international passport and in the case of those without passport birth certificate and voter’s card. This single document with the bio- metric of every individual will be in our national data base and can be tire to the much talked about BVN including vehicle registration and drivers licences.

We must take steps to regulate trans-immigrants influx from our national borders especially in the North.

we must build capacity of the officers and men of our security agencies including the armed forces.

We must train and retrain these men to acquire the technical skills required to handle modern security gadgets and gather intelligences required to be able to combat terrorism.

Our citizens must be patriotic and show solidarity with our Government in the fight against terrorism and kidnapping.

 we must step out of the back waters of the blame games and politicizing issues concerning our National security.

Our police force must be retooled to the level that it will be able to deal with internal security issue like the police did in Paris.

Our armed forces must be prepared to defend our countrymen and women against external invention.

Our political leaders must see the need to take the lead in providing the policy direction that can make us achieve this.

We must remove the thin line between APC and PDP in providing a broad national frame-work that caters for all.

We must fight corruption holistically without recourse to party affiliations, or personalities involved.  

 Our government institutions must be strengthened to be able to deliver cutting-edge services that will move our Nation to climes unimaginable.

Though tough as this may sound we can achieve this.

Finally, I strongly believe that Nigeria is better off as Nigeria, therefore would advise all those calling for separatist state to be guided in this call.

While I am not opposed to freedom of groups to seek self determination, the best we can call for today would be the rest of nation with the Nigerian states and a perfect Federalism.

Dr Chris Ekiyor