The Peoples Democratic Party, the All Progressives Congress and the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party on Tuesday reeled out their security plans to Nigerians ahead of the 2019 elections.
The parties disclosed the plans at the Nigerian Political Parties Discussions Series organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa in Abuja.
Osita Chidoka, one of the spokespersons of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, said that the biggest security threat facing Nigeria today was lack of identity.
According to Chidoka, the biggest security threat facing Nigeria is lack of identity, explaining that there is no record available on criminal activities of mischievous people.
He said: “The PDP will change the security sector first by moving from a state centric security architecture to people centric architecture; our focus is to move away from guns to public safety.
“We must begin to measure our output in security in terms of how secure Nigerians are by delivering public safety across all parameters.
“That is why the PDP’s plan is focused on reducing the over centralisation of the Nigerian security force.
“PDP’s second plan is to widen the concept of policing starting from the intelligence arm which is from the DSS arm to the enforcement arm it the Police, Civil Defence, Road Safety, NAFDAC to the courts who adjudicate on matters of criminality then to the corrective side which is the prisons.’’
Chidoka said that there would be no bottlenecks in delivering security because if the outcome on the enforcement side was improved, it would impact on the adjudication side which would in turn impact on the correction side.
He said that PDP’s security plan was a holistic one with the goal to make sure that all the bottlenecks which posed problems would be removed.
This, he said, would ensure that Nigerians become safe by empowering the police through reinvestment in a new recruitment process new promotion mechanism and a security architecture that would deliver safety to Nigerians.
Lanre Isah-Oniru, National Publicity Secretary, APC, said that the party had three plans to revamp the security sector in the next phase of its leadership by increasing the number of the policemen.
Isah-Oniru said that this was because the number of Nigerian Policemen had always been inadequate to police the Nigerian population and the APC was conscious of that.
He also said that the APC would train security agents on all the details of policing and intelligence gathering in order to have a 21st century security system.
He added that the welfare of security personnel would be looked into to ensure good salaries and other welfare packages to motivate them to do more.
He said: “This government is focused on addressing those three issues ,it is not a promise but it is what is already going on because the salaries of the police had just been increased.
Isah-Oniru said that APC would mop up all money for the benefit of all citizens so that people would no longer have free money to steal because the resources would be used to improve the lives of all citizens, especially those at the grassroots.
He said that Nigeria in the next few years under APC would be secured with a conducive environment for business and stability.
Tope Fasua, Presidential Candidate of ANRP, said that a lot of security problems arose from poverty and hunger in the society, adding the party would tackle insecurity through economic stability.
Fasua said that to achieve this, the party would work hard to double Nigeria’s national budget and grow ‘her economy targeting a budget of N15 trillion in order to take people out of poverty.
He said: “A hungry man is an angry man, so, if you put money in people’s hands and put food on their tables they will be less likely to cause security issues.
“So, our plan is a sound and equal economic sector free of corruption for the benefit of all.’’
The presidential candidate said that the party would also drive its security plan through education by making sure that all the 13.2 million out-of-school children were returned to school and engaged.
This, he said, would clear the streets of unproductive youths that could likely cause insecurity.
Armsfree Ajanaku, Senior Communications Officer, CDD, said that the event was organised to enable people to interface with political parties to know their plans for them ahead of the 2019 polls.
Ajanaku said that the topic of debate which was Security, brought out other critical issues on parties tackling method since it was a major challenge in Nigeria.
He said that the discussions would afford citizens with the opportunity to make up their minds on who to go to vote for in 2019 based on the needs addressed.
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