By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Presidential Think-Tank on Defence and Security said it will hold a 2-day National Summit on the 6th and 7th of December at the Congress hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja.
The theme of the Summit is: ‘Protecting Nigeria’s Critical Infrastructure, Monuments and Business Assets”.
The Chairman, Presidential Think-Tank on Defence and Security who is also the Chairman, Planning Committee of the National Summit, Maj. Gen Abdulmalik Jibril (rtd) disclosed this at a press conference on Thursday in Abuja.
To emphasize the importance of the Committee, the Maj. General said it is not everyday that committee is set up by the president to handle issues on National securities that affect defence generally and the nation as a whole.
He informed that the Think-Tank may not be well known to all, but that it has been in existence for over 3 years now stressing that they have been doing their work not in the public but that this time around, something very important came up. He recalled that the president sometime ago addressed the nation and drew attention of Nigerians on the need to individually and collectively protect national critical assets.
Therefore, the Think-Tank, having thought it wise on the need to deliver Mr President’s intention to the public, decided to organise a seminar to enlighten on the need and importance of protecting national assets, he said.
According to him, the essence of the conference is for the press to assist to propagate the importance of this forthcoming national summit.
The Secretary of the Think-Tank Committee, Maj General A. Umaru who read the address on behalf of the Chairman, said the summit is all about:
A response to the call of the president to what he called the fall of the country to Arms and to begin to think of what to do about these things because it’s not the protection of physical assets and not only a government responsibility, but also that of the business owners, the property owners, the operators of the Society in general is also part of the assets and if you recall, the national Security strategy 2019 that is signed, the efforts of that was that it is a whole of society approach to security and defence not that of government alone, it means everybody leaving and residents in Nigeria whether foreigner or local.
“So, it is expected that all will be part of it so that’s why we are organising this summit and it can reduce vulnerability of the Nation’s critical national assets and threats and hazards on the one hand and also on the other hand improving the resilience of such critical national infrastructure by strengthening their ability to withstand and recover from disruptions.
“This will involve a number of measures that I believe some of you may not be familiar with. The measures are usually with the physical protection to prevent damage or destruction, building a level of reliability and even business owners infrastructure all over, building a level of reliability into them so that they can continue to operate even after the attack partly assuring that there are backup systems, he added.
“The nature of topics and the quality of resource person invited for the presentation is a reflection of the seriousness of this summit. One if them from the academia is going to talk about institutionalizing early Warning systems and response. Another is a Major General who is currently serving as the Deputy Commandant of the National Defence College and his topic is : “Systemizing the framework for intelligence information management and tracking against threats to critical infrastructure and the third person is an Academic Professor and of course he is a member of this think tank and he is the Head, Centre For Defence Studies and documentation in the Nigerian Defence Academy. He is going to talk about domesticating frameworks and protocols – what is stratification codification of critical national infrastructure.
The National Summit is organised by the presidential think-tank on the Defence and Security in collaboration with Centre for Social Science Research.
Sundiata Post recalls that the aims of the summit includes but not limited to; putting in place deliberate processes that will lead to robust coordination and response system. Enable a stratification and codification of our assets- that way we can design appropriate response mechanism and consumption system to it. Finally, to design a national enterprise infrastructure in such a way that if anything happens at any place, there will be rapid response not only there but all around the place to choke the exit points.