…suggests use of drones to monitor Nigeria’s highways

A political Economist, Prof Pat Utomi, has said Nigerian politicians are responsible for the divisions in the country. He also called for the use of drones to monitor Nigeria’s highways as part of efforts to tackle insecurity.

Utomi, who spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), yesterday said governors must close ranks on it. The professor expressed dismay over what he referred to the poor attitude toward insecurity, saying, to protect highways was a fairly simple thing, if it was really valuable to the nation.

He said: “How many highways do we have? We do not have a lot of highways. “There should be aerial surveillance, drones over those roads because looking at the edges of the roads, whoever is inside the bush, they will see them long before anybody even tries to come out to the road to try and attack anybody.”

Utomi also pointed out that checkpoints were unnecessary, but rather said police forces were designed to be mobile. He said: “We should literally have rolling roadblocks: two, three police vehicles on this side and this side, a couple of meters apart, just moving.

“So, by the time they reach, say, if you are between Benin and Ore, about four different sets of three police cars, wellarmed, will be moving at distances between each other. So, there is a sweep, ongoing sweep.”

Meanwhile, Utomi said this at the “1st Tony Uranta Memorial Lecture” held in honour of late Uranta at the weekend in Lagos State. The lecture, organised by Tony Uranta Foundation (TIU), had as its theme, “Unity in Diversity: Building a National Identity Beyond EthnoReligious Fault Lines”.

Utomi said: “Sadly, you will find much of today’s divisions come from politicians weaponising differences. “Also, they deepen cleavages so they can pull the wool of emotions over reason to get votes they should not.

“Nigeria’s political class has traded a vision that God cut out for us. We need new thinking, if this phase is to pass Nigeria by.” The Chairman of the event, Godknows Ighali, said Nigeria was an intentional creation of our fathers.

He said: “When India and Pakistan were to have independence in 1948, they told the British, ‘We do not want to be one country; separate us’. “But in the case of Nigeria, our father said, ‘We want to be one’; but the terms of being one were agreed from 1950 up to the Independent Constitution of 1963.