Nigerian Air Force Advocates For Increased Security Consciousness Among Youths

Nigerian Air Force Advocates For Increased Security Consciousness Among Youths

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has advocated for increased security consciousness amongst Nigerian youths as a way of engendering a flawless Nigerian society. The Director of Public Relations and Information (DOPRI) Headquarters NAF, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Olatokunbo Adesanya, reiterated this advocacy on 7 March 2018 while delivering a lecture at Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) as part of programmes to mark the University’s 2018 Law Week. The theme of the Law Week is ‘Law and Security: Fostering a Flawless Society’. According to AVM Adesanya, the relationship between law and order is direct and interwoven and cannot be separated from the other in an effort to have a near flawless society. He maintained that it might be impossible to attain a totally flawless society because respective human beings have individual choices to do either what is wrong or right. Nevertheless, the citizenry must make every effort towards having a flawless society.

Speaking further during his lecture titled, ‘Role of Security Agencies in Engendering a Flawless Society: the Nigerian Air Force in Perspective’, AVM Adesanya stated that it is only in a near flawless society that there could be true prosperity in a peaceful and orderly environment. He further averred that it is only by operating within the ambient of existing statutes that security agencies could contribute to the engendering of a flawless society. Accordingly, the law and the security should be seen as two sides of the same coin if we must aspire to become a flawless society. He added that although the journey towards becoming a flawless society is collective, it begins with individual choices to be orderly and to encourage others to be orderly. The NAF Spokesman therefore encouraged the Law undergraduates, who would chart the future of law in Nigeria in the coming years, according to him, to be very mindful of their individual and collective responsibilities towards fostering a flawless Nigerian society. He also urged them to be more security conscious while being mindful that they would work side by side with security agencies and not on opposite sides.

The DOPRI used the opportunity to reel out the several humanitarian intervention programmes, which the NAF had embarked upon in the last 3 years in different parts of the country. He revealed that the humanitarian programmes were part of NAF’s contributions towards engendering a flawless society. AVM Adesanya revealed that NAF’s recent humanitarian intervention schemes include the free treatment given to nearly 300,000 Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country, including free surgical operations, free cancer screening and treatment, in addition to provision of free eyeglasses. The revelation elicited a resounding round of applause from the staff and students of the institution, who were obviously unaware of the extent to which the NAF had gone in providing succour to IDPs.

The NAF’s decision to accept to deliver the lecture is part of its efforts at mentoring the youths, as future leaders, towards laying a solid foundation for a more secured Nigerian society in the nearest future. The NAF has indeed established strong links with members of the academia in the past few years with the belief that the absence of such linkages, in the past, had hindered national development.