Tuesday, January 28, 2025 - Participants at an annual summit involving retired Army Generals and Legal luminaries have called on the government to go after financiers of insecurity in the country.
The call is contained in a communiqué issued after a House of Justice
Annual Summit and Golden Ball Banquet with the theme “Security Justice and
National Orientation” held in Kaduna.
The communiqué signed by Barrister Gloria Ballason and Luka Ashafa
Odita, Lecturer, Criminology & Security Studies, Kaduna State University,
stressed the need for cooperation by Nigeria and neighboring countries in
strategically resolving insecurity.
It said the recruitment process for security agents should be
transparent and based on merit.
The communique asserted that, “the government and security agencies are
aware of some of the persons sponsoring terrorism through intelligence
gathering and reports but there has not been concerted efforts to deal with the
lifeblood of insecurity, especially financiers of insecurity.”
According to the communique, absence of justice for victims makes some
of them to transit into combatants, just as it criticized the policy of
rehabilitation, recovery and reintegration programmes for offenders by the
government while abandoning the victims in internally displaced persons camps
which are sometimes re-attacked by the terrorists.
It lamented that Nigeria had repeatedly failed to hold electoral
offenders to account, as electoral crimes were rarely punished.
The participants suggested, “The justice system in Nigeria and Africa
should dispense justice according to law. The National Judicial Council and
citizens shall hold the judiciary to account.”
It also suggested that judicial appointments should be apolitical and
shall not devolve by family or filial ties or through any primordial sentiment.
The participants also noted that there are concerns about the
diminishing authority and respect for the justice sector due to the capture of
the judiciary by family dynasties, politicization of appointments and the
profiling of the judiciary as corrupt.
Some of the notable participants at the summit included: General Martin
Luther Agwai (Rtd), Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Professor Chris Kwaja,
Sarah Reng Ochekpe, Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu Rtd, Dr. Mike Omeri, Mr.
Chima Christian, Barrister Audu Adamu Maikori, Barrister Jibrin Samuel Okutepa,
SAN, and Commissioner of Police Kaduna State, Muhammad Rabiu, represented by
ACP Badamasi Musa.
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