Security of Life and Property

Living in Nigeria today is akin to living on a war front, where citizens need all their natural instincts to merely walk or drive on the street. Life itself has become something of a Russian roulette, it can best be described in the words of the famous English Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes: chaotic, nasty, brutish and short. Hired killers, armed robbers, ethnic militias, petty criminals and other social miscreants are perpetually on the prowl, making life, progressively, a living hell. High profile assassinations, daredevil robberies, ethnic and political pogrom as well as jungle justice in the home and in the streets have become such a recurrent feature of daily life that one may be justified to insist that the State in Nigeria is on vacation somewhere in outer space. The situation is so bad that in our country today, no citizen, no matter how high or low is secure and safe. Yet the first and most important responsibility of the state, even in medieval times, is to go to whatever extent necessary to not only make citizens secure and safe, but actually make them feel secure and safe.

To be sure, the current situation has not always been the case. A succession of bad policies and bad governance over the past few decades can be held responsible for this. Bad policies and bad governance, by their nature, generate social discontent that in turn breeds lawlessness, criminality and the rule of the strong. From the highest level of authority to the lowest in the streets this culture of impunity and insecurity has not only settled in, but is also, frighteningly, taking roots. No wonder it is said that when a fish starts getting rotten, it starts from the head.

Objectives

The most important priority of the Action Congress is to protect the life of every Nigerian and to make them safe inside their homes and on the streets, at home and abroad, to enable them move from one point to another at any hour of the day or night without the fear for their safety or their lives.

1. Good Governance: Enthroning a government of discipline, leadership by example and people centred policies.
2. Policing: Transforming the police into a true and proper instrument for the maintenance of law and order through continuous training, discipline, motivation, proper compensation and retooling, specifically, we shall:
• raise entry requirement to a minimum or ordinary National Diploma or equivalent.
• modernize methods of policing to give priority to crime prevention, investigation and collection of evidence
• adequately equip the police with modern communication, transportation and weaponry to meet the challenges of highly sophisticated crimes
• improve the welfare of officers and men with better pay sufficient and suitable accommodation
• provide adequate training opportunities at home and abroad and set mandatory training and training standards and targets for officers and men
3. Rehabilitation: Decongesting the prisons and making true and proper corrective institutions with well equipped and functioning workshop, learning centres and improved sanitary conditions.

Filed Under: ACN Manifesto