The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on Sunday expressed optimism that Nigeria would soon overcome its security challenges.
Dogara, who stated this in his keynote address at the House of Justice Annual Summit held in Kaduna, urged Nigerians not to rest on their oars until the country over the challenges.
He said: “These security challenges, as deeply disconcerting as they are, they are not strange. There is no nation on earth that has not been tried or tested. Every one of them has come to moments of national peril. We can put an end to the moral vandalism that flows from all spots of bedlam across the face of the nation.
“No season lasts forever, therefore this cup shall pass if we all do our bit such as we are doing at this summit in order to keep the promise of this great country alive.
For us to leave this Nigeria, our country that we cherish and hold dear, for others to defend is not cowardice, it is apostasy to the Nigerian creed. For those who think Nigeria has arrived at a dead-end, let us disappoint them by turning the end into a bend. We can do it!
“I need neither remind us that national security is a subject matter on the lips of all Nigerians now. I am further comforted by the recognition by House of Justice, in their thesis, that this insecurity challenge is surmountable, its enormity notwithstanding.”
The ex-speaker said the post-civil war situation in Nigeria had been largely calm except for limited instances of armed robbery.
Dogara added: “For about two decades the security situation has become unhinged. Killing, maiming, and the destruction of property have become commonplace daily occurrences.
These manifest in the form of the Boko Haram insurgency, kidnapping , militancy in the Niger Delta, the activities of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) secessionists in the South-East, banditry, farmer/herders clashes, cattle rustling and ethnoreligious conflicts among others. These, each sufficiently vicious in its own right, have combined to compound the quagmire of insecurity that pervades Nigeria now.”
