Need For Community Participation Tops Key Suggestions At Security Workshop Organised by NIMASA, Borno SEMA
By Abdulkareem Haruna
The need for all and sundry to participate in promoting improved security in communities especially as the country goes into the electioneering year tops most suggestions at a one stakeholder engagement and that held in Maiduguri, Borno state.
The one-day workshop which was jointly organised by the Nigerian Maritime Administration And Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) had the theme “Security is everyone’s business.”
The engagement which was held on Thursday, July 14, had participants from the community level, academia, members of the security organisations, the media and civil society.
The essence of the NIMASA/BOSEMA one-day workshop according to the Director General of SEMA, Dr Yabawa Kolo, was to ensure preventive measures are taken to tackle insecurity in the state”.
Deputy Director and Head of Public Relations ·at NIMASA, Isiche Osamgbi, who represented the DG NIMASA told The Humanitarian Times that “The idea is aimed at paving the way for collaboration between security agencies and civilians in sharing information that will lead to crime prevention.”
The Deputy Director said NIMASA is looking beyond security and safety on waterways to “preventive security measures” which he stressed, “must first be taken on land through a collaborative effort by relevant stakeholders.”
The one-day NIMASA/SEMA workshop was being held in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria to foster collaborative efforts of the youths, community leaders and the armed forces to assist NIMASA to deliver on its mandate.
“Our intention on the outcome of this workshop is clear; it is to ensure the effective relationship between security agencies and the civil populace that will engender sharing of useful information that will lead to crime prevention both on land and on waterways.
“We think that the danger is not only on waterways but also on land. We shouldn’t see security challenges on land as the sole responsibility of the man; security is everybody’s responsibility,” Mr Osamgbi said.
SEMA’s DG, Mrs Kolo said the workshop was precise in helping in addressing security challenges in different parts of Borno state.
Mrs Kolo, a former journalist turned emergency/humanitarian administrator who bemoaned the upsurge of small arms in various parts of Nigeria remarked that cooperation between NIMASA and SEMA will encourage Borno local communities in developing capacity for sharing useful information that will assist in mitigating the spike of crime and criminality, especially in the rural areas.
“More resources will be required to ensure that the rural areas benefit from this noble objective of addressing security challenges in the local government areas,” Mrs Kolo said.
The Keynote presentation at the workshop was delivered by Dr Musa Konduga, a senior lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, the University of Maiduguri who spoke about ‘‘communal and social challenges by security agencies in the northeast’.
