Army and police to set up joint squad to tackle security challenge in Nigeria

Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Police Force has plan to set up a joint squad to address security challenge in Nigeria.

Onyema Nwachukwu, spokesman of Nigerian army in Defence Headquarters, reveal this in an interview with Punch Newspaper.

The squad is mostly to operates in the northern region of Nigeria.

According to Nwachukwu: “The leadership of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, under Gen Abayomi Olonisakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and the Police have met and the meeting was to identify gaps in the operations and how to address those issues.

“There is a special joint operation coming up and all is already set for it. I cannot give you details of the operation. But it will take care of the banditry in the North-West region and other criminalities.”

In the same vain, Frank Mba, spokesperson of the Nigerian Police Force, speak on the possibilities of collaboration of all the forces in tackling security challenge in the north.

According to him: “What we require to permanently put an end to this menace is a broad-based action with intervention at multiple levels by multiple agencies. We are leading the charge at the security and law enforcement level, while we expect support at the political level from the state and local government levels, religious level and traditional institution as well as socio-cultural level.

“The present leadership of the force is already adopting community policing strategy as one of its main strategies for combating not only banditry, but other forms of crime and criminality. That is why the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has been on tour of the affected areas. The IGP was in Birni Gwari, in Kaduna, he was in Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina within 72 hours.

“We believe that the Nigeria Police, acting alone all by itself, certainly will not be able to win the war. We need to bring on board more relevant stakeholders and that is what community policing is all about. I want to appeal to Nigerians to be patient and provide us with relevant support. I acknowledge the fact that this is a challenging time, but the challenges are certainly not insurmountable.”

Source: omokoshaban.com