READ AND LEARN.... A GREATER RISK THAN BOKO HARAM BY DAMILOLA OGUNSIPE

A Greater risk than Boko Haram.

Why should it matter if your neighbour is unemployed? Why should it matter if the child on the street is not getting any education or that elderly woman has no access to her retirement benefits? Regardless of our level of self-centredness or greed, the world has been fashioned in such a way that the fate of each and every one is somewhat connected. The man unemployed today may defraud you tomorrow, the child deprived of education today becomes a societal liability tomorrow, the elderly woman deprived of retirement benefits hints us there’s no light at the end of the tunnel at the end of our labour.

Breaking free from being myopic, we need to realize the real security risk. Boko Haram is an obvious risk but the real risk we face is a broken social security system. Nobody has got it all figured out but then we should see that our broken social security is driving sincere citizens to the underworld and if nothing is done crime rates will soar.

Social security is expensive but worthwhile, a government without a sense of service is an imperial one. Every government should have a detailed scheme that caters for the vulnerable segments of the population. A scheme that prevents them from becoming a nuisance to the society

Boko Haram is the foul offspring of an indifferent government and a broken social security system. More offspring will come forth if we fail to see that child hawking on the street is a potential security risk, that the unemployed are unnecessary liabilities and viable assets.

What is needed is not a committee to investigate as to the cause of this problem but a working social security scheme that will protect first and foremost the vulnerable members of the society that are often the target of the underworld.

The society in which a person lives should help them develop in a way they can make most of all the benefits which are offered to them in the country. Some may retort, “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” but what is the very essence of government? The history of governance informs us that the very essence of government is that in sacrificing a measure of our rights and liberty for a ‘supreme’ order they provide basic social amenities.

It is difficult to castigate people from being unpatriotic as they do not feel indebted to Nigeria in anyway, they generate their power and provide their security but that should not be the basis of patriotism however the indifference of the government to the plight of its citizen has created a precarious relationship between the government and the government.

National insecurity will not fare any better until social security is addressed and the vulnerable population is kept from the preying eyes of the underworld. In the end, the morality of a nation shall be judged by what it does for its people.

Written by Ogunsipe Damilola.