Ubong King, the C.E.O of PROTECTION PLUS SECURITY SERVICES, PPSS is a famous Nigerian based Security Expert with a professionalism prowess in maritime security, V. I.P and escort protection. His business interest cut across Asia, Europe and America with its headquarters in Ajah, Lagos. Ubong a passionate thinker of Nigeria project bares his minds on causes and solution of insecurity as well as many other sundry issues affecting Nigeria in this exclusive interview with Security Monitor’s crew

IS THEIR A LINK BETWEEN UNEMPLOYMENT AND INSECURITY AND WHAT DO YOU THINK GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO ABOUT THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYEMENT FACING THE COUNTRY?

To say the fact, Nigeria is blessed with many resources and with high volume of population. Over one hundred and eighty million people; we have Land which is very good and vital with so many resources.

The challenge we are facing is that we don’t have thinking leadership. There is different between election and governance. You can elect a man into an office, but the man may not be sound enough to deliver. The man has office but he does not have the intelligence dealing with that office. Our leaders at all levels, federal level, state or local level lack thinking capacity. That is the first challenge bedeviling this country because the popular saying has it that ideas rule the world. The second challenge is that we have identified population which stated that 75% of Nigeria is made up of youths and out of these populations – 40% are unemployable that means they don’t have skills. So if you do the mathematics on this, you will find out that 68 million people don’t have job, a man don’t have job and he need to buy cloth, foods and provides shelter for himself and his family, you will realized that money is important in the life of human being. Those challenges are heavy. They are actually the cause of insecurity disturbing the country. Poverty, lack of money and basic amenities has made criminality order of the day because man needs money to take care of his family and he don’t have he will definitely steal. The reason for stealing the money is legitimate, but the action of stealing the money is wrong and criminal even many political leaders that are ruling this country were at a point working in private or government establishments with high level of corrupt life style. Many of them were crooked. Before 419 there is 418. They were also motivated by business man and woman, converted their intension to their personal interest, which will lead them to decision and help them to transfer funds out of this country.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE SOLUTION PLEASE?

When the current government came on board, His Excellency President Muhammad Buhari as a man of integrity brings a lot of tension as per people that have stolen money, they don’t need to be exposed to the public, it will rather cause more problems. But what I would say is that they should think of strategy to deal with corruption, insecurity and unemployment in a three arms of government, whereby the government can encourage peace arrangement that will stop the attacks of the militants on oil installations. I learnt some of the militants are demanding for an end to the ongoing anti-corruption war but government can douse tension by bringing the key actors to discussion table that is the intelligence strategy and these is what is out of the system now. For instance, if the government needs to build factory or road, what they will do is that they would partner with people who stole the money and build it with that money they stolen, then the government will own equity share on it, so if somebody has taken one billion and was ask to build a bridge, what will can do is very simple; the person will build the bridge with the money he stole, do it as special purpose vessel, whereby such project will be financed from the money he took and they will share the profit. A toll gate may be built on such project if it is road for example, people will use the road and pay for toll, the money generated there will be shared between government, which means we have protected the looter and also create infrastructure, recovered funds to do projects, given a source of lively hood. But now people are taken money out of the country. So stopping of trial and engaging looters in a profit making arrangement can discourage people from taking our money to other country. Such gentlemen arrangement will encourage rich men to invest in Nigeria. By so doing, the people that will work on the project will be Nigerians therefore there will be employment and issue of insecurity will be under control. This political arrangement can solve many problems including creation of infrastructure, eradicating poverty and unemployment and of course solving insecurity challenges. This is a government plus suspected looters and the involvement of technocrat arrangement that will guarantee lasting solution to sustainable peace and development.

DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WILL BE WILLING TO SUBCRIBE TO THIS IDEA?

Yes; that is where negotiation comes in, if you look at it now because of the current pipelines vandalism Nigeria have become unattractive to the investors. People who want to buy crude oil are going to Iran, which means Nigeria is losing. The populace here loses, no income, no jobs and the men that steal the money are not free. Other looters are scared, the militants are also scared while they are fighting, and they know that they can also die. So why do we have to kill anybody including our gallant security forces and still lose our collective resources and money if the government sees the fact, present it to the person through a special purpose vessel as it designed that anybody caught will use the stolen money to build roads or other infrastructure and it will be managed by both government and the looters. But that money will be from the people who are alleged, not by arresting them, because the arrest is not going to work, the man will fight anybody who wants to recover that money from him and still send him to prison. But when he use the looted money to construct road, he will create employment for the people that would work on the site, the engineers and contractors that would lay the road, manage the road, cleaning the road and because it is a special purpose vessel project which will also be managed by government and private individual it is bound to be successful.