Intelligence Gathering-- Bane of Nigeria Security Agencies

By

Ahme Adoke*

duniyass@yahoo.com

In Nigeria, it has become obvious that the various security agencies have failed. Hence, the rising spate of terrorism, militancy, kidnappings, armed robbery, to mention but a few.

The failure of these security agencies (the police, army, the statesecurity services etc) despite the huge yearly budgetary allocation to them is largely due to their failure in the area of intelligence gathering and sharing of such intelligence reports with other relevant security agencies for proper implementation.

The above observation is garnered from my experiences of the crisis that brought about the first coup in Nigeria in 1966, my brief transit through West Africa to Egypt in 1967 during which I covered the 7 days Israel/Arab war and the Nigeria Civil war of 1967 — 70. Added to the above is the experience garnered during my recent coverage of Niger Delta militants operation.

Another important factor that is militating against the success of Nigeria's security system is politicization of the security system as well as corruption.

On the politicization of the security system, some intelligence reports, especially from a junior security officer, can not be passed to a senior officer for fear of being framed up or being accused wrongly of having a hand in such matter. Similarly, some intelligence reports are waved aside by heads of security agencies if it boarders on their interest, this is common in the areas of religion, ethnic and political consideration.

Under corruption, the Nigeria security agencies have become so corrupt that they prefer the curative method of security than preventive. This is because it is under curative that more money is voted and it means more opportunity to make personal gains. In other words, most Nigeria security agencies, especially the police hates to hear the phrase "prevention is better than cure". In some instances the police stir problems in order to make money from it.

It has also become apparent that the failure of our security agencies to curb insecurity in Nigeria is partly due to the unhealthy rivalry between heads of our security agencies.

There is little inter-agency co-operation among them, thus leading to loss of confidence among the various security agencies. Since there is no operation that can succeed without correct intelligence, emphasis should be placed on training and re-training of personnel to enable them confront the modern security challenges.

Such training opportunities should be done with utmost sincerity and less favoritism in order to avoid rancour and to achieve the desired result. should be trained on proper adaptability to environment in order to get results, there must be intelligent use of every available tip of public information through infiltration of public places such as bars, public transport, and stooping low within the communities etc. Also recruitment into our security agencies must be based on federal character and the present method of sales of recruitment opportunities to the highest bidder/recruitment opportunities on ethnic and religious sentiments must be discouraged. If recruitment into our security agencies is done based on federal character consideration, any sectional sinister plans will easily be check-mated.

It has also been discovered that there is a growing trend where some of the nation's security agents seems to have compromised either in terms of religion, ethnicity, ideology or financially by those against the stability of the country, hence these category of security agents find it difficult to arrest perpetrators of crime.

Therefore government must ensure that there is adequate logistics in place for field officers in intelligence gathering/ implementation. There should also be hazard allowance for officers and adequate compensation in terms of injury or death.

For easier access to information, the security agencies should avoid torture/frame up of innocent citizens in their course of retrieving information. Substance should be pursued than the present pursuit of shadows.

In this regards Para-military agencies like Customs, Civil Defence and Immigration Services must be carried along by the core security agencies.

As for the citizens, it is the responsibility of all to be security conscious as well as be prepared to divulge information at all times, irrespective of the present police inconsistencies towards citizens that afford to give them valuable information.

Finally, if this practice of not adhering to federal character persist, time shall come when the dominant religious/ethnic members of the armed forces may clash to the detriment of the overall interest of Nigerian armed forces and Nigeria in general.