Security leaders and innovators who converged on Lagos State yesterday have stressed the need to devise homegrown, people-centred solutions to combat the insecurity problems rocking the African continent.
The participants at the 2025 Sub-Sahara Africa Security Conference, SASCON, held in Lagos with the theme: “Strategic Approaches to Security in Complex Africa,” agreed that collaboration and intelligence-driven security tactics would fast-track the process of achieving a safer continent.
The host of the conference and Chairman for ASIS Lagos Chapter 206, Mr Adedeji Oduba, acknowledged that Nigeria has peculiar security challenges, adding that the whole essence of the conference is to dissect and identify those visible and hidden parts and proffer sustainable solutions.
Oduba emphasised that the issue of National security should not be left alone in the hands of law enforcement agencies, stressing that all stakeholders should fully participate in the process.
“We all know that Nigeria and, by extension, Africa have a lot of challenges in terms of security. if I want to narrow down to Nigeria, where every one of us can attest to, every part of the country has peculiar challenges, so we have thought of bringing this conference to Nigeria, gathering all security professionals in Nigeria to address different security challenges across the country that make up the sub-Saharan regions,” he said.
He mentioned that besides the discussions, the vision of the conference is to see it in the implementation at the National level.
“At the end of this conference, a communique will be issued, and we hope it will get to the national assembly, where legislators will look at it and those entrusted with ensuring security of lives and property in Nigeria.
And if they need corporate security like us to be involved, we will be more than willing to support,” he added.
In his goodwill message, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, represented by Rear Admiral S.T. Ibrahim, emphasised the need for collaboration to surmount the security challenges in Africa.
He acknowledged that security challenges are complex in some parts of Africa and stressed the need for concerted efforts and strategic approaches to unravelling them.
Similarly, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, appreciated the organiser of the event, stressing that it shows that the issue of security is of paramount importance to all stakeholders, not just Nigeria but Africa as a whole.
Ogalla, who was represented by Abdul Rahman Mohammed, said that security is not just an exclusive reserve of security agencies and military services but requires the collaboration of all stakeholders.
In his remarks, the President of ASIS International, Mr Joe Olivarez, maintained that one strategy to address insecurity is to break down barriers to solving problems around the world.
He said, “No one person can solve any one problem; it takes a community and collaboration between the public and private partnership to really understand the community that we live in and the challenges we face when we come together.’’
