Nigeria is currently facing one of its greatest security challenges ever since it attained political independence on October 1st 1960. From the bandits having a field day in some parts of the Northwest, to kidnappers in the South West, and herdsmen clashes in the Middle Belt and parts of the South East and South South, as well as the decade long Boko Haram insurgency, the nation has lost lives and property worth billions of naira.

An unsecured nation will not be the darling of investors no matter its economic potentials. Nigeria spends billions of naira on security annually provided for in the budget, yet not yielding expected results. Recently the Boko Haram insurgents have started using drones in monitoring Nigerian troops of the Operation Lafiya Dole Joint Task Force to know when to launch attacks on our combatant warriors.

Now that the future of warfare has gone hi-tech, Nigerian security agencies should invest in deepening its capabilities to defend the nation’s sovereignty internally and externally from threats against its existence in advanced technologies like Cybersecurity, Internet Of Things, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Robotics, etc.

Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics into the Defense Headquarters operations will help the Military Operations Centres predict, identify security threats in real time, monitor piracy and bunkering activities within the Niger Delta, attack insurgents autonomously while Augmented Reality can be used in training cadets at the Nigerian Defence Academy and Command and Staff College Jaji, Kaduna on battlefield scenarios. Also, relaying 3D visuals of combatant situation reports and Internet Of Things technologies like smart wearables will capture real time data on all security officers on field mission including their health conditions in case of attacks suffered while the Nigerian Police, Customs and Immigration Services can leverage Blockchain technology to establish a secure non tamperable digital record of all criminal cases, track import and export of goods across Nigeria’s ports, airports and borders as well as store information of all expatriates and will eliminate passport fraud at their offices. Cyber security capabilities can help the EFCC, Police to be effective in the fight against cyber criminals while the Department Of State Services and armed forces will use their knowledge to neutralize domestic and foreign cyber threats to Nigeria’s existence

The National Security Adviser Major General Babagana Monguno(Rtd) should set up a Security Innovation Lab which will set up a programme to train Nigeria’s military and paramilitary units in skills such as Cyber Security, Internet Of Things, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Augmented Reality which will enhance their operations for efficiency. Upon their training they should be allocated Research Funding to develop cutting edge technology solutions to the nation’s security challenges and the successful inventions will be developed to become market ready at the Security Innovation Lab incubator which will deploy them to the various units and agencies and commercialized by creating security tech startups that will build solutions for local and global challenges.

The office of the National Security Adviser can learn from the US Central Intelligence Agency which funds security tech startups in order to protect America’s national security interest such as Palantir which is now a multi billion dollar company.

Is there any benefit to been celibate? What is the big deal in it you might ask? Are there adverse effects to this? Interestingly, in this article, we would be talking about what the positivity of being a celibate entails, I know you are itching to find out, and if you already know, you might just want to learn more. For starters, what is celibacy? It is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both usually for religious reasons. In the general sense, it means only abstinence from sex. This article will be delving into why celibacy is good, especially until marriage or until when fully mentally and morally ready for sexual indulgence.

BENEFITS OF BEING CELIBATE

1.FREE FROM SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES : Been celibate, prevents you from indulging in several sexual escapades that might result to any kind of sexually transmitted disease, such as HIV AIDS, Gonorrhea, syphilis, Chlamydia and many more. The number of people living with HIV today in the world is alarming, though it could also be contacted through other means, but sex seems to be the fastest means through which people contact and spread the virus. Being celibate till when you meet the right partner, in the right moments prevents or saves you the exposure to all these disease risks.

2. FOCUS: Been celibate, especially as a teen or a younger adult, helps you to be focused on whatever you are doing at the moment so as to achieve positive results in future. Be it your education or a skill, whatever it is you are doing at that stage, to add value to your life. Most teens that indulge in sexual activities from a young age, actually get addicted to sex before they are even adults, and do not know how to control themselves at that point, a lot have gone through needless pains, heartbreaks and disappointments with the opposite sex later in life, the worst is sexual addiction. Sexual addiction will make an individual lose focus totally and it takes a lot of effort or self discipline to curb such attitude, the best thing is not to be addicted for starters. Much more of them have inferiority complex and don’t see any good in themselves, they can’t stand up for themselves as they feel used and useless and are always looking to fill the emptiness they feel in their soul with sex. The distraction that comes with sexual activities for the underage go a long way in disrupting their concentration in education and other areas and it eventually leads to misplaced priority for them. To achieve anything great in life, focus is the key, it can’t be replaced, life comes in stages and there are priorities for each stage, when a child who is supposed to be in school studying is busy involving him or herself in adult business, then the consequences are not farfetched.
3. FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNER: Everyone wants that special person that truly complements them in all areas. In finding the right person to spend life with, a lot of people have missed it and have caused a lot of hurt and broken heart for themselves, this is because most people hardly take time to get to know the person they just met before they allowed their emotions get the better of them and started indulging in sex, it will be then difficult to tell if the person is the right person for you are you are already into them with sexual emotions and it doesn’t make you think straight or make objective decisions, once the sex is involved you both will hardly want to do anything else to get to know each other except sex. A true relationship doesn’t thrive only with sex, it does with communication, sacrifice, faithfulness and selflessness, any relationship based on sex alone, cannot stand the true test of time. Celibacy helps you to get your priorities right with the person you are involved with, it enhances effective communication, and emotions don’t just build up and prevent you both from discussing the needful as regards the relationship. But you both have to be of the agreement of celibacy from the beginning of the relationship; it would be wrong and unfair to deceive someone into relationship with you and forcing your ideologies or believe on them just because they are in love with you.
4. HELPS YOU GET OVER BREAK UP AND HEAL FASTER: after heartbreak, some people quickly rush into another thinking it will help them heal or get back to at their partners, only to find themselves back in the situation they were before. After heartbreak, the best is to stay away from your ex and take time to heal, check out your faults and try to work on them so as to get better by taking your time before starting another relationship. And even when you decide to start the new relationship, been celibate will help you get to know the person better and make your decisions so as not to fall into wrong hands and repeat the same mistake all over again, but when you just got out of a heartbreak and you jump into sexual relationship immediately you start the new one, if eventually it doesn’t work out the way you expected you aren’t going to heal still, the hurt will just continually broaden and hatred for the opposite sex might just come in. Staying celibate is the best for you as it helps greatly in your healing process, as you are no longer feeling attachment of any sort. Sadly, some people wrongly think when their partners break up with them, the only way to get them back is to seduce them and have sex with them if that will make them have a change of heart about them, unfortunately that seem to worsen the hurt and things never get better, some ladies especially, have the wrong ideology that having sex with men will make the men stay and they forget to work on other aspects of their lives needed to make the relationship work, this doesn’t always work out that way, most of them end up leaving the relationship abused and used. Celibacy helps you to get things straight as your emotions are not clouded with sex.
5. PREGNANCY: Abstinence is the best prevention for unwanted pregnancy, especially for teens and young adults who are not matured enough to handle the pregnancy process or take the responsibility, been celibate will prevent you having any unnecessary pregnancy which might disrupt a lot of your activities. There have been some beautiful relationships that have been destroyed due to unexpected and unwanted pregnancies, there are a lot of kids in the orphanages whose mothers or parents have abandoned them because the pregnancy came at the time they couldn’t handle it, and most of this children are left with the hurt and burden of who their parents might be. A lot more have turned wayward and have become threats to the society as they lacked proper parental care or a mother or father figure to tend to them, to teach them what they need to know while they were growing and learning. The truth is if people remain celibate till they are ready to fully handle the dividends of sexual relationship, it will save the society a lot as regards wayward kids and teenagers, unwanted children, abortions and the likes. Some promising teenage girls drop out of school due to unwanted pregnancies and end up prostitutes and harlots, which might have been prevented if they were focused with their school work and not distracted with sex at such age. Celibacy really helps you to plan your life, when and the number of kids you choose to have and be responsible for so as to save you stress and unnecessary pressure of being baby daddies and mummy’s as the recent vogue in the world today. Pregnancy takes a lot of physical and mental effort and its best at your most convenient time.
6. FINANCIAL PRUDENCE: Staying celibate helps you to also manage your funds, especially for men, those addicted to sex can’t do without going to brothels to get prostitutes to satisfy their sexual urge, if there is no one around them to do it for them. They end up spending their funds without even thinking on prostitutes and strippers. Those kinds of individuals can hardly save and plan for a better future as most get conned by some dubious partners or harlots they might be hanging out with. For the females too who receive funds for sleeping around, more than half of what they get is used to take care of their bodies, to continually look good so as to attract more people to them, some unfortunately contract diseases they end up spending the earned money to care for. A celibate person saves his or herself the unnecessary financial burdens of sexually exploitative pertness and therefore can plan their finance better and channel it into better things of relevance to them.
7. RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION FULFILLMENT: There are some religions that don’t support sex outside marriage and in the bid to fulfill this obligation by some individuals they decide to be celibate till they get married. To avoid the constant guilt when these obligations are broken, it makes some people to stick to celibacy till the approved time, so as to be in peace in their hearts in their religion and with their maker. There are even some religious countries that sanction defaulters of sex outside marriage, some societies also stigmatise those involved and caught.
8. FAITHFULNESS: Infidelity and cheating, is the order of the day in most marriages or union in the world today, the divorce cases is continually rising. But been celibate especially for a very long time, or till marriage helps to control your sexual urge and handle sexual temptations from the opposite sex. It makes it easier to stick to one partner, when you eventually get married or in a serious relationship, the foundation of trust in any relationship is built on faithfulness. Multiple sexual partners is the reason why some individual can’t stick to one person during marriage and as we all know, characters at first are like strands, they later become cables and once cables, it is very difficult to break. A celibate person is more likely to the more faithful in a relationship as they are not exposed to multiple partners over the period of time they were single, this makes their partner more confident and fully trust them.
9. DIGNITY: There is this self respect, dignity and admiration you get from others, when you can control your sexual drive and especially when you only hope to indulge in it in marriage only. For men especially who might have some vulnerable ladies around them and refuse to take advantage of them sexually, instead preach the values of been celibate to them this act will paint a picture of dignity of such individuals in the ladies heart. Also there are some ladies too who refuse a lot of financial favours or jobs with sex as the price to pay; they refuse to give their bodies out in return for an offer. This act in itself is dignity and integrity and add values to you as an individual.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, if you are presently a celibate or you are considering been one, the benefits attached to it are worthy and the wait and worth the wait. There is actually no gain in continually having several sexual partners of changing partners all for fun, as the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases are too high. Your dreams and aspirations in life, can only play out if you live a well organised and disciplined lifestyle, as your focus won’t be diverted needlessly. Some very beautiful marriages today are broken, because one partner decided to cheat and seem to enjoy sex better with the new found lover than the one at home, gradually there is bridge of trust, anger, betrayal and many more, divorce finally happens and innocent kids if available are hurt and affected negatively, most of them grow up to have such unhealthy mentality about sex and divorce. The positivity of celibacy far outweighs the negativity and should be encouraged. Imagine the number of foster kids out there today, as a result of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies, continually high rate of abortions which have cost some young ladies their wombs and the inability to ever bear a child again in life. Been celibate is truly beneficial.