The Federal Government has outlined a multi-pronged strategy aimed at tackling insurgency, banditry and kidnapping across the country, with plans to recruit more security personnel, deploy advanced technology and strengthen international partnerships.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Daniel Bwala, disclosed this during a panel discussion on Friday.
Bwala said the Tinubu administration had intensified efforts to address Nigeria’s security challenges by increasing the number of personnel across the country’s security agencies, stressing that the current workforce was inadequate for Nigeria’s population and geographical size.
“We are investing in training and retraining. First of all, we’re investing in recruiting more security personnel because the one we have, they are not sufficient to match with the population and the land mass,” he said.
According to him, part of the new recruits will be deployed as forest guards to flush out terrorists and criminal gangs operating from forests, where they also engage in illegal mining and other criminal activities.
He explained that the recruitment drive covers the Nigeria Police Force, the Armed Forces, the Department of State Services (DSS) and marine security agencies to improve security operations nationwide.
Bwala further revealed that the government was collaborating with paramilitary organisations and had licensed some private security companies to complement the efforts of conventional security agencies.
He also disclosed that President Bola Tinubu had ordered the withdrawal of police officers attached to VIPs to boost frontline policing, warning that officers who failed to comply with the directive would soon be identified and sanctioned.
On technology, the presidential aide said the government was investing heavily in modern surveillance equipment, including drones and interception systems, to strengthen intelligence gathering and enhance round-the-clock monitoring of criminal activities.
“We’re investing in technological devices that, in modern days, help us when we are sleeping, which is the drone system, interception and all that,” he said.
Bwala also announced that Nigeria had expanded security cooperation with neighbouring Sahel countries as part of regional efforts to combat terrorism and transnational crimes.
He disclosed that the country had, for the first time, entered into an extended military partnership with the United States, under which American special forces recently concluded a phase of operations in Nigeria while other personnel remained to train Nigerian security operatives.
He, however, declined to disclose details of the training, saying such information remained classified for national security reasons.
“We will not tell the world the nature of the training. We don’t want our enemies to know. There are certain things that are classified because we don’t say it, people tend to think government is not working,” he stated.
According to Bwala, military operations are driven by intelligence gathering and reconnaissance, with troops often waiting until terrorists leave populated areas before launching attacks in order to minimise civilian casualties.
Describing kidnapping as a “crisis economy,” he said abductions are carried out not only by terrorists but also by criminal elements within local communities.
The presidential spokesman added that the Federal Government was encouraging community-based policing by strengthening the presence of the police and the DSS in urban centres and supporting neighbourhood security initiatives.
He cited Lagos State’s neighbourhood marshal programme as an example of how community participation could improve intelligence gathering and crime prevention.
“So we are expanding the local police and DSS within the city, like the Governor of Lagos told me they are doing, developing community-based policing, neighbourhood marshals and others, where they say if you see something, you must talk,” he said.
Bwala further argued that insecurity tends to increase during election periods due to the recruitment of criminals and armed groups by political actors, urging Nigerians to assess the government’s security performance after the election cycle.
He also disclosed that security agencies were intensifying efforts to identify and prosecute compromised law enforcement personnel, citing the recent arrest of a senior police officer by mine marshals as evidence of the government’s resolve to eliminate corruption within the security system.