Army promotes national security through school debate

The pupils of Army Children Senior High School, Lagos have emerged as the overall winners of this year’s School Debate, which was organised by the 9 Brigade of the Nigerian Army Cantonment, Ikeja, Lagos.

The topic of the debate is: “Stemming the Tide of Security Challenge in Nigeria is the Sole Responsibility of the Federal Government,” in which Army Cantonment Senior Secondary School, Lagos came second in the yearly competition.

Representatives of Army Senior High School, Folasade and Ruth Iwedike argued in favour of the topic, while Etaghwere Otega and Aisha Lawal, who represented Army Cantonment Senior Secondary School, argued against the topic.

In three-day elimination stage which qualified the two schools for the finals, the host school, Command Day Secondary School, came third for arguing for “Promotion of African Values a Panacea to Socio-Economic Misfortunes of Nigeria,” but could not make it to the final stage. While Army Children Senior High School, which emerged as winner spoke on:

“Upturning the Pains of Current Economic Recession to the Betterment of the Nigerian Economy,” qualified for the finals, the Army Cantonment Senior Secondary School, which spoke on: “Objective Career a Solution to Unemployment in Nigeria came second.

The speakers, Oloyede and Iwedike, while arguing their topic, advised the Federal Government not to involve external forces to support the fight against insecurity, saying such foreign assistance would only end up destroying the existing structures in the places.

“We have professional trained military men, it is wrong of the government to involve both external forces in the fight against insurgents,” they said, adding that what Nigerian military needed are motivation and incentives to encourage them.

They bemoaned the budgetary allocation as security votes, which are being plunged by the governor, arguing that what was the government doing about this.

Oloyede, who led her school, said that Nigeria is endowed with abundant natural resources, but blamed the leaders for the economy recession, tracing it to mismanagement and misappropriation of funds by our leaders and rising unemployed graduates.

But for Lawal and Otega, who could marshal their points very well, the judges however pointed out their deficiencies, saying that there is nowhere in the world where security is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government .