In the wake of growing security challenges across the globe, industrial security professionals have stressed the importance of fostering strategic planning, information sharing, and robust synergy amongst stakeholders in the industry to ensure the protection of lives and property.
The professionals spoke in Abuja, at the ongoing ASIS International Sub-Saharan African Security Conference, themed: Managing Security Risks in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous and Digital (VUCAD) Africa.
According to the CEO of ASIS International, Peter O’Neil, the security conference comprising many women and men who are serious about protecting assets and people, while working in partnership with the government and private entities can only further improve the security situation as a whole, irrespective of where they live in the world.
He noted that although there will always be a physical security challenge, the notion of having planning, a strong network and sharing knowledge is critical to ensure the protection that everybody needs, in Sub-Saharan Africa or other parts of the world.
He added that ASIS International, a group of a minimum of 34,000 members around the world, are security management professionals, who work every day to protect people and assets anywhere they can, relying on strong standards and guidelines and renowned specifications to help them be the best they can be.
“We have a very strong presence in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria, it has some of our biggest chapters. We rely a lot on voluntary engagement in the passion of our volunteers to produce conferences like this in Nigeria as part of the rotation.
“We work very hard in a public-private partnership with governments, private agencies and consulting companies to make sure that people have access to the best current information on the practice of security management that they can have,” he stressed.
Representative of the Norwegian Embassy, Saether Ronny, Head of Chancery and Consular Affairs, said the conference is not only important but timely given its focus.
He reiterated that Norway remains fully committed to working with the organisation to manage and tackle the growing security threats in the region.
Similarly, the Chairman, Local organising committee of the ASIS conference, Edward Orim, said it is one of the largest conferences in Africa, adding that it had kicked off with a cocktail in honour of law enforcement and their heads, who sent representatives, were appreciated for a lot of impact on the society.
Orim, who is also Chairman, of Chapter 273 Abuja, said at the end of the Conference, we would be making recommendations, and already, we have a partnership with the FCT Administration, which we will send these recommendations to them, which will support the administration in the area of security management.
The conference, which ends on Friday, has guest speakers and attendees from within Nigeria, the United States of America (USA), Ghana, South Africa, Bulgaria and other countries.
