Benue to hold nat’nal conference on Homeland Security

From Dooshima Terkura, Makurdi

Benue State Government through its Public Service Institute said it’s making plans to hold a national conference on homeland security to enable it articulate new strategies to confront the security challenges in the state.

The Director Research and Publication at the institute, Dr. Mark Nyitse, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen in Makurdi.

He said during the conference, experts would provide inputs on how to effectively stop the menace of insecurity in the state.

“We are organizing a national conference on homeland security. His Excellency, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia is very particular about security, he keeps talking about security and he doesn’t sleep over it.”

“The conference is called a conference on Homeland Security, so many topics will be discussed by qualified people who are in the security industry would be present. We are only going to provide a platform for people to come. It is a conference that is open for everybody to come and be a part of.”

Nyitse said the Director General has been building strategies so that Benue state will be safe saying if there is security in Benue state there will be security in Abuja, and Nigeria as a whole.

He said the conference will hold between March 26 to 28, 2025, and security experts and thinkers will be in the state thinking on the area of security at a round table presenting papers and exchanging ideas that would help the state.

He also said the institute, in partnership with the Federal Road Safety Corps, will train drivers to use the roads effectively.

“If you train people and keep them busy, quite a number of people will not engage in social media banters. We want to use it as a center that will train people digitally so that our youths will have something to do in the state,” Nyitse said.

He stated that the Institute is well equipped to upscale the knowledge of civil servants to discharge their duties deploying modern tools and skills to enhance government efficiency.

He explained that training and retraining of the state civil servants will bridge existing capacity gap and ensure efficient delivery of government policies and programmes.

“Governor Hyacinth Alia believes that if civil servants are well trained, all his policies and programmes will be executed properly,” he said, and added that the training will be based on the needs of the civil service.

“The first thing that the institute did was to assemble all the staff of the Government House. They came here for training and they received intensive training on the do’s and don’t of their jobs. The Governor wanted to know if the people that are working with him know exactly what he wants to do.

“When he appointed 13 permanent secretaries, quite a number of them were new and have not done the job of a permanent secretary, so they also came for a training to know the do’s and don’t of their particular offices.”

He also said that the institute had trained all the newly elected 23 Local Government chairmen before they assumed duty on various aspects of their responsibilities.

“We have programmes that will help in developing the capacity of workers in Benue state and even neighbouring states like Nasarawa, Taraba, Kogi and even FCT. They will get continuous training and research will be conducted to know what they need,” the director added.