SSANU president urges govt to allow varsity security personnel carry arms
By Modupe Shodeinde
President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (SSANU), Mohammed Ibrahim, has advised the federal government to allow the security personnel at universities to bear arms.
Ibrahim while speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channel Television programme, on Monday, said the majority of the security personnel are former military and police officers, who just need to be retrained to tackle insecurity in higher institutions.
“Most of these universities have just opened, and therefore there is no effective means of securing the communities and this gives a chance for these criminals to go in as they wish,” he said.
“We all have the arm of the university called the security unit. Most of these security staff in universities are retirees of either the army or the police, and therefore they are not new to security operations.
“So what we think is that having been overwhelmed by the situation, the government should licence and retrain them and once you licence them, they would be able to protect numbers of staff and students that are within the precincts of these universities and institutions. It will reduce the vulnerability of students and staff.
The SSANU president noted that in the interest of everyone in the community, it would be better to have well-armed security men who can protect lives and property for the system.
“Outside of this, universities will run dry, because no parent would want to allow their children to go and get abducted and will be asked to pay what he doesn’t have.”
He further advised the government to deploy graduates into security agencies immediately after their service year, “these are people that are ready and willing to be employed or enrolled into these security forces.” He said.
