The Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) has called on the Federal Government to adopt a multi-track diplomactic approach in handling the security challenges facing the country where the states, individuals, NGOs and religious bodies have critical roles to play.
This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the 27th Conference of the association held at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, signed by its chairman, Professor Ishaq Oloyede and made available to LEADERSHIP.
The VCs observed that lopsidedness in the existing curriculum on security studies where emphasis is on security history instead of creative appropriation of security knowledge must be overhauled.
They pointed out that insecurity was a direct consequence of leadership failure in the country, just as they observed that weak networking among security agencies with multiplicity of databases impacted negatively on national security.
The university bosses added that the failure of society’s sanitizing roles on the youths has led to the erosion of values and norms which have direct bearing on social security.
The VCs arrived at a unanimous consensus that there is an alarming rate of erosion of academic tradition in Nigerian universities, especially with regard to the award of honorary degrees? as most now get them because of their wealth or political status, noting? that most universities use this medium to generate funds, a? move that ruins the sanctity of universities as instruments of moral guidance.
In line with their observations therefore, the AVCNU has called on the leadership of this country to accept responsibility for the breakdown of security in this country and effectively mobilize their followers to be security conscious, pointing out that cooperation and effective networking needs to be strengthened among security among security agents.
The conference also called on the educational stakeholders across board to pay attention to the development of robust and effective curricula for peace studies and adopt a bottom-up approach where emphasis should be on the lowest level of education.