Leverage technology to address insecurity, Osinbajo tells NDA graduates

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says the country needs to focus more on technology to effectively tackle insecurity.

According to a statement by Laolu Akande, spokesperson to the vice-president, Osinbajo said this on Tuesday at the 32nd convocation ceremony and graduation of 69 regular course cadets and postgraduate students of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna.

“At a time when national resources are stretched thin, we have to come up with technology-driven solutions to addressing our security needs,” he said.

“We must become savvier in the deployment of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools to complement our human resources. When applied creatively, technology can be a force multiplier, amplifying our potential and our capacity to effectively secure our territory.”

The vice-president, while addressing the new officers, charged them to be conscious of emerging security challenges, adding that the current threats are different from those encountered in the past.

“Aside from the serious revenue loss from declining earnings from oil and gas, there are the disruptions that may be caused because of our military’s dependence on fossil fuels for transport, logistics, mobility and weapons deployment,” he said.

“We must rigorously consider the implications of these shifts on our national defence apparatus because as our country pursues energy transition, it is worth setting as a goal for our defence and security sector, an equivalent energy transition strategy for our military.

“The threat environment that you are tasked with engaging is not the same threat environment that existed just a decade ago.

“In strategic national security terms, you will be operating in a new age. While your challenges are new, it is also true that every generation must define its cause and fight its own battles.

“You must contend with the mix of asymmetric conflicts, hybrid warfare, insurgencies and armed criminal activities perpetrated by criminal non-state actors. These are conflicts that are novel in their viciousness but dated in their origins.

“How do you engage a vicious lawless enemy along the lines of the Geneva convention? What are the new rules of engagement with well-equipped criminal non-state actors?

“We must take note of the realities of living in the digital age. Digitisation has created a whole new world, cyberspace, where all transactions and activities commercial, social, financial, and even crucial military intelligence take place.

“There is no doubt that the digital domain is one of the frontiers that your generation of our armed forces will be increasingly tasked to defend. More broadly, It is clear that we cannot secure or defend a country of this size with human assets alone. We must leverage technology.”

He commended the academy for including innovation in the institution’s curriculum, and urged the graduating cadets to commit themselves to protecting the unity of the country.