Okowa attributes nation’s insecurity to unchecked population growth, poverty

From: Nosa Akenzua, Asaba

Delta State Governor, Mr, Ifeanyi Okowa, on Wednesday, attributed the security challenges inhibiting socio-economic development of the nation to a multiplicity of factors including high rate of poverty, unemployment and the geometrical increase in the population of the country.
Governor Okowa disclosed this while playing host to the Country’s Representative of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), Mr. Vladimir Kreck and the Director General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Prof. Abubakar Suleiman who were in Government House, Asaba for a courtesy call.
He said there was need to look at the totality of the governance approach to security reforms such that it is not just about security agencies, saying “many times we blame the security agencies rather than address the root causes of the challenges”.
According to him, the nation must address the critical issues concerning poverty and unemployment as well as the growing family size in the contemporary Nigerian society as a way of tackling the challenges of insecurity in the country.
While thanking the Country’s Representative of KAS for his promise to give support in the area of security sector reforms, the governor noted that the nation needed reforms in the security sector to mitigate its security challenges.
“The security situation in the country is as a result of multiplicity of challenges that we have; the unemployment situation is high, there is no doubt; the level of education is low; so when there is a lot of ignorance, the poverty rate is high and when you have a combination of all these, and more importantly is the fact that the population size is high.
“And when you have poverty combined with high population, you are running into a very big problem because you are giving room to families that would continue to breed more and more poverty.
“It creates a situation that the country would find very difficult to manage and that is exactly where we are heading to. So, it is important that we look into the entire foundation to ascertain where we have gone wrong.
“So as we address the reforms in terms of approach, information gathering and even going into modern architecture, we must address the issues concerning poverty and unemployment and the growing family size.
“Until we address the root cause of the security challenges which borders on poverty, unemployment and the growing family size, we may not be able to tackle security issues frontally.
“As populated as Nigeria is, the more secure that we are as a country, the better for the world because if we are not able to secure ourselves, we will create problem not only for ourselves, we create problems for the world.
“So, I pray that your assistance will help in one way or the other to help lighten the security burden that we have at the moment.”