 Welcome back. It's still the run-up here on Plus TV Africa and we're being joined by security expert of international standing, Mr. Augusten Ega. Good morning and welcome to the run-up. All right. Okay, good morning. It's my pleasure to be with you. Okay, welcome to the show. It's last time we talked security generally and we were referring to what the president said about security that by December security will be a thing of the past. But right now the U.S. issued a security warning that some flashpoints in Nigeria will be attacked and we took it lightly but right now that we're drawing some non-essential staff as they call them from Nigeria and from these places and are saying unless you have something really important especially in a place like the FCT you should never go to that place. First question is should we take this seriously? Is it as serious as the U.S. is making it or we should look elsewhere for this kind of advice? Of course it is serious because the U.S. they are always on top of their security issues. They consider security issues as a priority to any other business. And of course we don't see it from that angle and that's why we are struggling with everything we are struggling with the economy. But they see security as the force. If security is laid down properly they know every other thing will work well. Like I said last time because of the insecurity that's why you see people live in Nigeria there's brain drain there's so many other issues happening. Security is dependent of insecurity I mean it's independent of other factors that is affecting or plaguing the nation. Right now we must take it serious because there are when you when you do a country risk analysis there are certain statistics that they follow through. Before you can profile a particular geo-political zone and say this place is not safe or is very is known for this kind of violence. First of all you remember that in FCT we have had series of incidents. First of it was we have this issue between Kaduna and Abuja roots. There are some guys who operating within that same terrain. On the 29th of March there was a kidnap case along Kaduna Abuja the same Kaduna Abuja. No matter the proximity Abuja is still involved and about 10 people 100 persons were taken for six good months they have been under their hostage taken. Again we have an issue on July 5th. There was also the Kuja prison break on July 5th about 600 hardened criminals inmates were freed and we don't know where they are and after this the Kuja prison break we had an ambush against the presidential guard whereby some guys were killed. I mean presidential guard all this is happening within Abuja and we also have the along the path we see we have the overkilling going to they went to a church a Catholic church and they killed almost 41 June 5th. If you check from their statistics that we have generally from 2015 I mean 2015 to date that is to October from the statistics we have about 53,418 Nigerians have been killed as a result of terrorism and we see that the hot point that this is coming from is within Abuja. Within Abuja exists and of course like I said terrorism is not something and terrorism is not something that you can properly define but I know that what really inspired terrorism is our political agitation. Some they hide it under religious whatever but we know that is for political reasons and the kind of politics we are having now whereby the three contestants are very strong figures in the three zones. We have the West we have our own the South East and of course you have the North. It is one of the most highly contested point we are seeing and it means that there will be a lot of very violent activities going on because terrorism is politics because they know that when they get it they have the economic power. So from this a lot from the US I want to believe very well as a specialist that they are very right about it because they see it there are some kind of predictive model that we use to get certain facts and we know that this thing would definitely happen. So I think they are on the right path. Okay Mr. Ega thanks a lot for the the examples that you gave just to bring our consciousness back to the seriousness of the of the matter. There are some people who feel that the US advisory may have been in bad taste looking at the examples you have also given because there were there were times when Abuja was significantly threatened and they didn't issue any advisories you know and then when it now looks like according to this you know people who feel this way when it looks like things seem to be stabilizing suddenly this advisory pops up. What's what's your reaction to that? In fact the most dangerous point sir is when you feel that you are safe it's when you are safe in security because they have if you see the US they have constantly been issued advisories but because of the denial factor in our kind of governance they don't want to believe because normally it's a state of panic people don't want to panic at all and so they try to cover up especially politically they want to give an impression that they're actually walking but as I said as long as we have poor neighboring countries around us and Nigeria is somehow an affluent nation within poor nations we have most of these attacks that are coming from the profiling they actually don't Nigerians like former army chief of staff General Tijuadin Jajuma said he said there are foreign people with very sophisticated weapons and offered his own advisory that based on his military training and background everyone should defend himself so on this US issue if you see their profiling of Nigeria as a whole they were not specific to Abuja sometimes they will say Lagos and what they are passing out now is for people or the governor the people in charge of authority should do something that is the meaning of advisory they are not saying that you are not doing enough but they want you to take specific steps to protect the citizens to protect the government to protect your economy and your own people that is why they are doing and they didn't touch only Abuja they mentioned Borno they mentioned Ube they mentioned Kogi and that this area they are prone to kidnapped they are prone to banditry they are point to terrorism and also my on the south side zone they mentioned cross river state of Kaibong and the Niger Delta the interiors that is also prone to kidnap and maritime crimes except what I call that was safe that they describe as a safe place if you come down to Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Zamfara and all those Kasina they also lay there's a country ricks they say ricks on that point they say it's kidnap so you can see ricks is dynamic tomorrow today is terrorism in Abuja next tomorrow maybe in the next two days you hear that okay kidnap is on the rise the next month so that's our security work it's dynamic so it evolves in the first round the Joe zone they are marudas and people keep moving around like you and I for real normal business they too they are going for their own business they are profiling they are listening they are seeing how people feel about security and when they know that they are lax they strike okay just US is doing now is for people to is for those in authority of security to stand up to their game okay you yeah thanks for the panoramic perspectives one of the challenges that have been identified has to do and you alluded to it in your in your remark the nature of the borders the international borders that we have especially in the north where we have a vast desert and the borders are not fenced because of the huge mass yeah of those borders for me there are two questions related to this for which I would like your perspective one okay how can we properly secure these borders because it will appear as if no matter what the authorities do if those borders remain the way they are fluid it might undermine whatever effort is being made the second associated question to that is that when the military as they have done in many situations drive out threats from some of these areas there are those who wonder whether we actually have enough manpower to actually secure those areas that may have been purged in other words are you satisfied with the size of our security forces or do you think given the threats facing us we need to be hiring more people training more people equipping more people in order to properly secure what these people refer to as ungoverned spaces yes those borders if most times there is this there's something I would like to bring to your notice very briefly very briefly because our time is running out please yes all right if you go around us our streets you see something like national ID registration and everybody can do it on a business as a business center that card is very sensitive it won't get stuck at it claims it becomes a Nigerian citizen that is number one I have lived in Borno state in my early life and I know how most of the people living in Borno most of them are migrants from other countries so if you talk about the space I think there's this inflow of business from that area it's just like Lego spot there is the Saharan site we have customs we have immigration over there I think they should do your do their jobs that is all I can see we have people that supposed to work in that area they should do their job okay and in terms of recruiting more military army it is never enough in fact they're supposed to be the highest and the most number forces in Nigeria because if we look at Russia take for instance Russia and Ukraine they are even recalling people on reserve so having a high military number is never enough because of it can happen anytime any moment there's no notice I just have to deploy what if you have like four incidents at the same time that is territory based in three regions of the nation how will you mobilize the military so that you can recruit it okay let me say yeah we really wish that we had more time to discuss this security issues can never be exhausted another thing would have asked you was what it really meant to be or what it really means rather to be a security conscious but we can't have time to answer that we're hoping to call you again as soon as possible because we'll be talking security until the election is over at least because we know this is the time to be really conscious about it but we'd like to say thank you to you for coming on the program today to share your thoughts my pleasure thank you young group thank you thank you all right that was Augustine a guy security expert talking to us about the the security advisory that the US has given to Nigeria and Nigerians and its own citizens mentioning some flashpoints within Nigeria that should be visited only when it is absolutely necessary well we will take a short break and when we return will that's the break will be for the news and after the news we'll take the final lap of this journey stay with us you're welcome back before the news we talked with the SA budget crush of the state and it was talking or giving us an insight into the budget of quantum infinitum we know big jaw-breaking words come out of cross river state when it comes to budget presentations like that we had at one point cabalistic densification or something like that and so many other wonder only one whose name I could understand was budget of blush and bliss even then I was still just asking myself why this kind of name my Christian budgets in this kind of way that a common person on the street may not know your intent for this budget and I think budget should be named in such a way that the people will understand that this is what our government plans to do this is what it plans to use this money for this is this is the direction he wants to go so that if you have anything you can key into that you know from the onset this is the plan for this yet but quantum you're attending a Latin mass you don't understand if a thing you're just saying amen to it it's it's serious we are we discussed this even when we were talking about saying that one of the presidential candidates has gone to the US to campaign yeah you know and we said look the choice of words that are public officials adopt is very important they need to be circumspect it needs to be very simple it needs to really convey adequate information to the population and of course with a view to ensuring that the population can engage and can support and can take ownership you know but if they don't understand what is being said and have no clue whatsoever as to what the objectives you know of the authorities are is always very difficult you know for the for the public to be a part of what is happening to also be part owners and to promote it you know but hopefully hopefully we will see changes yeah changes in infinitum okay we also talked with a security expert Mr. Augustine Ega and you know even when the federal government is saying that this advisory this security alert is is out of is blown out of proportion and all that he also wanted that everybody should be security conscious and these things that are coming out from America there are reasons why these things are coming up but we already know this is Nigeria and a lot of things are happening you could leave your house in the morning and in the night they're looking for you and sometimes the enemy is even within we've seen children who kidnapped their own parents sometimes they plan with their own friends to kidnap them so that they can obtain a lot of money from their parents one thing or the other we don't know why this thing is so we used to watch these things in movies only now it's happening in Nigeria and it's unfortunately that people will be talking about Nigeria in this light it used to be a very peaceful country we never we never thought a bomb could go off in Nigeria true now it's happening true and I mean there are a number of reasons of course you know but I think one key factor as well could be a total collapse of our values you know we used to have what was called the National Orientation Agency I assume it still exists you know and some Nigerians will remember in the days of Professor Jerry Ganna as the director general of MAMSA you know movement you know I don't know now what MAMSA means but it was basically this orientation you know and you know I remember the Andrew advert yeah exactly so there are so many ways you know direct and subtle of trying to influence us into you know right in our values right thinking behaving properly but frankly it's it's there's a big gap now you know people even do things that are wrong and don't even know those things are wrong the other day we were talking about when people hire house helps and have absolutely no information about where this house has come from no garanto even they don't have the name maybe they only have one name oh her name is charity charity what they don't know or her name is boss a boss a what they don't know right and and then it and then this house help connives and there's bug lary or something and they go to the police and they're expecting the police to apprehend somebody whose photograph they don't have whose names they don't know whose address they don't know who didn't give a garanto you see so we need to begin to rethink all these things and for me it's not everything that is going to be government I believe strongly that if the values reorientation yes government has its role but significantly between the family largely the family to some extent the school at primary school level there religious places of worship Muslim and Christian or whatever religion people have they have a very big role to play in this attitudinal shift because if we don't address the collapse of the values even when you try to do the right thing people will frustrate you because the value system is wrong it's like you're stopping at a traffic light the traffic light is going from green to red but if I'm is shifting to amber you are slowing down to stop because he's telling you get ready to stop and then people start honking behind you and telling you to get out of the way so it be like it just come late so so and yet the same people who drive against traffic the same people whose children are not 18 years old and don't have a driver's license and they allow the child to drive are saying the government is bad the government is not doing this the same people who don't use the pedestrian bridge which is built to enable them cross the road safely also accusing the government you see so we need to we need to really sit back and play our parts this morning I was coming to work and we got stuck somewhere in Vega there's a road leading to the highway and we were on that road to we stayed there for like 30 minutes and we felt there was traffic on the highway because there's been trafficking you know this past few months because they're working on the road so we felt that was the reason but guess what when we finally left that place we discovered that people were driving on that one way drive they were driving against the traffic and that's how we got stuck so multiple vehicles were coming the wrong way and we that were on the right way could not be the price for so we stayed there for like 30 minutes until and on the highway the vehicles were not moving that fast so for any of them to negotiate and go back to reverse and go back was a problem because they went multiple vehicles like that so now I lost 30 minutes coming to work because of what someone just couldn't use their head to do right and when you talked about orientation it's not a save okay we are talking about the days of Andrew at bed in the 80s and you can say okay things have changed things have not really changed just recently one of the people who was heading this ministry or this agency brought a slogan good nation good people or something like that it changed the orientation of the people we're so proud to be Nigerians yeah at one point there is this history that in Texas Texas was a very dirty dirty place and the government tried everything to make it clean again but it didn't succeed so they now came up with just a slogan you cannot mess with Texas and since the Texas people thought they were macho man they were you know the powerful man that slogan alone rested well with them so you can mess with Texas so messing with Texas will be you look can look for that trouble but again you cannot mess the environment so that made them to have everything and Texas became clean again so sometimes what we just say the words that we we say that the things we put in people's heads do not necessarily have to be laws that we're enforcing we're imprisoning them we're doing a lot of things they just need to hear the right things be said to them true the other day maybe this is a digression there was news that someone was jailed for 21 years for stealing food and I was wondering 21 years for stealing food did we even ask the question what led to that yes he committed a crime someone was saying that just a off criminality and a lot of other things but I was like okay why did this guy have to commit this crime in the first place was it that maybe he has even begged for food or maybe like these things are happening his entire investment maybe he's a farmer has been destroyed by flood or something why did he steal and then 21 years no fine nothing just no suspended someone someone was told food which for me where I will actually or not is direct it's directly linked to hunger yeah sure why is he so hungry that he would go and steal and then now you're going to give him 21 years maybe he stole to feed his family now this family what will happen to them sometimes you tender justice with mercy with mercy and with reasoning yeah and perhaps he could have been given I mean we do respect to his lordship who ever gave the judgment but but sometimes maybe he could have been given a suspended sentence you know to reform him because now especially our our penal system is designed for reformation that's why we change the name from prisons to correctional or custodial centers you know to reflect that philosophy so I feel that yeah this in this case maybe a suspended sentence you know will still reform the person because the whole idea is to ensure this person is reformed you know and then we look at the root causes of why he would go and steal you know to steal food and then there's the unfortunate thing about the prisons themselves what are they doing do they really check these people because when you go into the prisons you'll find out why so many people go in there as tolerable criminals if I may use that word and come out as hardened criminals because even the people who administer these prisons or these correctional facilities so permit me to say our worst and the criminals that they take there there was a time that the government said whether it was true or false that they budget like 13,000 per day or something a lot of money for every prisoner per day and I've seen firsthand there was a time I was doing I was a cat keys as it is in a for prison the prison somewhere I was working I was going there to minister to them to talk to them to advise them and all that and I saw firsthand the kind of things that happen in that place they will need people to come out from outside to give them toothpaste which I know the government provides to give them soap which I know the government provides and even to give them food that will have protein which I know the government provides and so many other things that you cannot even say on air and you begin to wonder are these centers really for reformation or they just go there and make more criminals out of values if we come back to values we would find out that if I became head of a correctional facility it's my responsibility to ensure that whatever has been appropriated for those inmates actually get values again you know and frankly I mean maybe because of my experience I've been in conflict areas I've seen things and I've been in conflict areas where you be amazed there was little or no criminality aside from the combat operations that were going on and I asked myself these people are deprived their country is at war and you can actually move around except of course areas where the fighting was and nobody would attack you nobody was still from you and I started asking myself what is the difference and for me it is values that they would mean I'm not advocating combat or conflict I'm just you know using an example if people had such an extreme situation and within that extreme situation they still observed certain behavioural traits there was this picture when these war Russia war Ukraine war just erupted people were fleeing the country I think Russia they were fleeing Ukraine and one side on one side of the road there were so many vehicles but on the opposite side which was leading into Ukraine there was no vehicle and someone was asking even people running away from a war can still observe traffic rules and you be hearing the sound of the shell in the fighter jets but you still you still orderly obeying traffic rules it was it was crazy and it's a time for you know anywhere we have a mass accumulation of people maybe schools mosques churches and we need these places to rise up and play their roles because they have a very big influence in on us you know they have a big and then of course the government the authorities have to lead by example okay yesterday we had a guest here that was doing something and I think this is something that schools should copy as well they call her grace and quacha she she goes to communities built libraries for them makes sure the people the children study the children read that reading culture but whether what struck me is that she makes sure she organizes community service for these children so when they go into the community community and do the things that they do even if they are going to clean the gutters they're going to sweep for an old person they're going to fetch water for someone they identify firsthand the problems of that community and they begin to develop an unconscious love for the community which hopefully will translate into patriotism tomorrow so volunteering community service and all these things are things that we should start to teach our children from the primary schools absolutely so that when they they grow up like this good book says teach a child what it should be so that when it grows up it never departs from it well well we can talk and talk and talk today it's good sometimes to reflect and I'm sure our viewers you know they have their own views as well they they have their own opinions but generally we all know that we have to really improve in a lot of areas and that both the citizens and those in authority we all have roles to play you know it's not only one-sided we all have roles to play and if we play our roles appropriately we will definitely see a remarkable change you know in our situation okay is the ball is in our court let's make Nigeria great as we want it to be let's do this thing again tomorrow or on Monday rather where we'll come back again you can come tomorrow until then my name is Nyam Ghul Aghaji I'm Bayolo Aghaji it's been a pleasure once again sharing part of your day do have yourselves a wonderful weekend bye