We’ll deepen efforts to secure Ondo – Akeredolu
Ondo State government has vowed to deepen efforts at ensuring those saddled with the responsibilities to secure the country possess the requisite capacity to perform.

The state governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu who stated this in Akure yesterday said the government is working assiduously to reposition the security framework of the state.

The governor during the state’s first security summit titled: “Improving the Security Architecture of Ondo State for Sustainable Peace”, said professionals of unmistakable imprints of experience who were resource persons at the summit will contribute significantly to the security of lives and property in the state and scale up the state index on the ease of doing business.

He noted that insecurity has been a major challenge globally, describing the provision of adequate security as capital intensive and called for the need to involve all well-meaning individuals to ensure a crime-free environment.

The Governor said total reliance on government to achieve the lofty objective may not be enough to completely address the menace.

He said the present administration is embarking on ambitious programme of massive infrastructural development to create an enabling environment that will transform the state to an industrial hub.

Akeredolu expressed the belief that the outcome of the summit will contribute significantly to the security of lives and property as well as scale up the index on the ease of Doing Business in the state.

While describing insecurity as a major global challenge, Akeredolu said there was hardly any continent without its own peculiar socio-economic issues.

He explained that the African continent grapples with serious challenges of existence which have had debilitating impact on their 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.

According to the governor, the understanding of the current issue of insecurity as a global challenge will assist us to adopt the right measures to combat the menace appropriately.

He explained that the summit could not have come at a better time as the issue of security was becoming more complex, complicated and compounded by the very circumstances which define us as a country and our relentless quest for peace and progress.

In his welcome address, Chairman of the Summit Planning Committee, Mr Jones Ogunmusire said the summit was designed to make the state safe for its inhabitants, investors and also make it a safe-haven for capital inflow.

Ogunmusire who is also the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Administration and Policy Planning, mentioned the summit objectives to include; appraising the current security architecture in the state and project the future of the state.

He said it was also aimed to design on appropriate funding arrangements and to produce suitable policy document on the sustainable development of the State.

He stated further that views and recommendations expressed at the Summit and Memoranda already received from the public would be harnessed, processed and developed into a draft Security Policy Document that will be presented to Government for consideration of the Security Council, adding that those that would require legislation would be sent to the State House of Assembly.

Delivering a lecture on the theme, a Professor of Criminology and member, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Femi Odekunle, suggested among others, the establishment of an advisory social-science based’ State Crime Prevention and Control’ body for a crime-free environment.

He explained that the body would be for articulation and coordination of the objectives of crime prevention/control instrumentalities in the state as well as for crime/criminal justice administration data collation/analysis and production for regular inputs into the state’s development and security planning.

Odekunle also suggested the execution, to start with, of an ‘Area Crime Prevention /Control strategy’, based on a state-wide victim survey, to reduce criminal victimization of citizens in the state.

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