Insecurity: Senate President urges collaboration among security agencies

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has urged the security agencies to partner and collaborate among themselves especially in the sharing of intelligence.

Lawan gave the advice on Thursday when he received in audience, Course 14 Participants from the National Institute for Security Studies, led by the Commandant, Mr. Ayodele Saheed Adeleke.

The Senate President in his welcome address underscored the importance of intelligence gathering towards guaranteeing the security of lives and property.

Lawan urged the participants to take their training in intelligence gathering seriously, and appealed to security agencies in the country to adopt an approach that encourages collaboration in intelligence sharing and coordination.

“We need you to be well trained, so that you would help in the fight against all the numerous challenges that we face today, by providing the necessary and relevant information in time for us to nip in the bud, or at least, reduce the extent of damage.

“And, I will take this opportunity also, to appeal to the various security agencies to always partner, collaborate and coordinate their activities.

“Those in charge of intelligence, please, it is mandatory that when you gather intelligence, you pass the intelligence to the other agencies that need them to operate properly, otherwise, that is not of any use if that agency cannot have access to them.

“For a long time, we have been complaining about coordination and partnership between the various security agencies. It is necessary that we are able to achieve that,” he

According to him, the efficient gathering of information amounts to effective intelligence needed to curb insecurity across parts of the country from activities such as banditry, kidnapping, insurgency, and militancy.

He said, “The place of intelligence in security is so paramount, in fact, in many cases, intelligence helps to curb potential and devastatingly dangerous attacks against citizens.

“In countries where there is so much success in fighting insecurity, the position of intelligence is so secured and well supported, and, therefore, functions almost optimally by providing the kind of information that is required to nip in the bud potential damages and massacres.”

Lawan, in his assessment of the security in the situation in the North-east part of the country, noted that insurgency had been drastically curtailed by the intervention of the military.

He, therefore, pledged the support of the National Assembly to the military in sustaining the fight against insurgency North-East, and curbing the menace of banditry, kidnapping and militancy in other states of the federation.

“We all know that our country today, is challenged seriously by insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, militancy and even cybercrime.

“On insurgency, we can say we did very well from 2015 to date, by curbing and curtailing the insurgency in the country, because before 2015, our situation was dire in the North-East.

“In the last two to three months, personally, I’ve observed serious improvement in our war against insurgency in the North-East, and we are very prayerful and hopeful to be supportive to ensure that the new Service Chiefs get every possible support from us, so that they are able to continue with their success and trajectory in the fight against insurgency in the North-East, ditto the fight against banditry, kidnapping, and of course, militancy,” Lawan said.