Improving Citizen Security Education and Awareness in West Africa

Abstract

Globally, expenditure in defence and security has been rising for the past two decades. Many reasons account for this phenomenon. Among them are increasing threats, and economic and geopolitical competitions. In Africa, not a day passes without security incidents which often results in heavy casualties leading to loss of lives and properties. Security has become a huge developmental challenge on the checklist of almost all countries in the world and this is no different in Africa in general and West Africa in particular. Every year countries in Africa invest billions of dollars in security to ensure that lives and properties are protected. These investments are in the procurement of new equipment, training and capacity building, maintenance and materiel, administration and operations. These expenditures are recurrent and often do not yield direct benefits to the country’s Gross Domestic Product as often expressed by the citizenry. Some have argued that though these huge recurrent expenditure on security are worthwhile, concerns have been expressed about the low level of citizen security education in West Africa. This is because some believe that when the citizens are well informed enough about the security threats and what they should do, incidents of security will be reduced. The paper focuses on the roles of government in citizen security education and awareness and explores the ways that citizen security education and awareness can be improved to reduce security threats and harm to the people.