Accountability, Candour and Transparency Network, ACTNetwork, has said only the Federal Government and all sub-national government tiers coming together to implement security solutions can save the country from “a looming conflagration”.

The Network, in a statement, went on to list the security challenges to include a centralised and understaffed police force, global warming, population explosion, diminishing resources and bad governance.

According to ACTNetwork, these challenges have led to “the abduction of over 1,157 students; 19,000 killed in herder/farmers clashes and Boko Haram terrorists claiming 36,000 lives in two decades.

“Down below in the Gulf of Guinea, an unspoken war is waged by pirates. Meanwhile, the intercity roads across the nation have become a nest for kidnappers to the extent that only the brave or the suicidal dares them.

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“Over 30 years of economic decline in Nigeria has not helped matters. Immigration services are overwhelmed by a lack of political will to stem the surge of the population into the nation.

“To add to this hydra-headed problem, the government has seemed powerless to rein in influential religious leaders who provide a veneer of legitimacy to bandits.”

By way of solution, ACTNetwork noted that “for many years now there have been strident calls for a fundamental restructuring of the Federation.

“The magnitude of that problem would suggest a need for government to facilitate an open wide-ranging national conversation about the nature, cost, and purpose of government itself.

“This is obviously a medium-term solution, but action must commence in that regard today to save our collective tomorrow.”

It also said there is a need to adopt creative solutions to the issue of nomadic livestock breeding, such as the establishment of commercial ranches across the country and also enact state laws prohibiting open grazing with a one-year moratorium;

Focus on the problems of global warming and desertification and education be given the attention it requires, unlike the current “charade that exposes students to kidnappings while government officials’ children school abroad”;

“There is a need to pay attention to our immediate international neighbourhood and the happenings there for our security.

“Then revamp our armed forces in an accountable manner as respectable organisations that attract international regard,” ACTNetwork advised.

Vanguard News Nigeria