APQ - APPON PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

This paper examines the spate of insecurity in today’s ecosystem, aiming to deploy a knowledge-driven approach and spiritually baked cultural panaceas to curb its surge. It argues that the same spiritually grounded cultural weapons can restore security in a typical African society. Owo in Ondo State, Nigeria, is used to buttress this point. The paper discusses the concept of security synchrony by exploring how political aspirants, security agencies, and the general populace can collaboratively construct and sustain a framework of communal safety that extends into the secondary school system through mentorship rites, elder supervision, and community-sanctioned moral codes drawn from the same culturalspiritual repertoire. The study is set against Owo’s escalating violent crime, ritual killings, and armed attacks, and against a pattern of secondary school delinquency that is both a symptom and consequence of a fractured security architecture. Methodologically, the study adopts qualitative and discourse-analytic approaches, drawing on observation and relevant scholarly literature. The findings reveal that effective security requires institutional reform, political commitment, and reorientation of community consciousness, which is achievable through spiritual weapons, a participatory, and knowledge-driven approach. Practical strategies towards realising this are proposed accordingly.

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