A retired United States Army Captain, Bishop Johnson, has blamed Nigeria’s worsening insecurity on the collapse of local government administration, urging the Federal Government to revive the country’s grassroots governance structure to curb rising criminality.
Johnson stated this on Tuesday while speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, monitored by Mega Icon Magazine.
According to him, governance remains a critical pillar of any security architecture, but many local councils across the country “are in a comatose state.”
He said the failure of local government authorities to deliver basic services has left millions of Nigerians vulnerable to exploitation by criminal groups.
He said, “They fail to render essential services to the people, leaving large populations at the disposal of criminal elements who recruit them into their enterprises and continue to carry out the insecurity we see in the country right now.”
Johnson argued that Nigeria should not have ungoverned spaces, noting that security agencies alone cannot solve the country’s complex security challenges.
“Sometimes we blame the security agencies, and they cannot solve this problem alone. Governance is important and a part of security strategy.
“People charged with providing governance must do so to remove small criminal elements from the equation and allow security agencies to focus on those who are bent on causing havoc in our country,” he said.
The former army officer recalled that insecurity was relatively minimal in the past when local governments operated effectively in synergy with traditional institutions.
He added, “Back in the days when local governments were functioning effectively, this country had minimal insecurity until we began to weaken those two institutions that brought us to where we are today.”
