So, the Senate has decided to call in the big guns to talk about the scary security situation in the country. They want the National Security Adviser (NSA), Service Chiefs, and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to come to a meeting and figure out how to make things better. This all came about because Senator Abdulaziz Musa Yar’Adua from Katsina Central sponsored a motion about the urgent need to improve the way Nigerian security forces and agencies work together to fight insecurity. He thinks that the security situation in Nigeria is really tough and no single security agency can handle it alone. He wants all the security agencies and government departments to work together to fight banditry, insurgencies, and other security problems.
Senator Yar’Adua pointed out that Nigeria has a lot of security agencies besides the Armed Forces and the Police. There’s the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigerian Correctional Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, and other civilian task forces. Plus, there are key security services like the Department of State Service, the Defence Intelligence Agency, and the National Intelligence Agency. He mentioned that Nigeria is dealing with a lot of security crises at the same time, like Boko Haram in the North-East, bandits and kidnappers in the North-west, gunmen in the South-east and South-south, and other crimes like armed robbery, herders/farmers clashes, and cross-border crimes.
Senator Yar’Adua also talked about specific incidents of killings and kidnappings in the country, like the attack in Zaria, the threats from IPOB in the South-east, and the activities of insurgents and bandits in the North. He mentioned the kidnapping of Major General RC Duru in Owerri, Imo State, and the attacks by bandits in different parts of the country. He thinks that the security agencies need to work together under a central command structure to really secure the country.
The Senate wants the security agencies to improve how they work together and come up with a national security policy to make things better. They also want the agencies to do joint training to be better at dealing with all the security challenges in the country.