NIS boss wants establishment of Crime Analytical Agency to tackle insecurity

The Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr Muhammad Babandede, has called for the establishment of a Crime Analytical Agency of intelligence gathering to tackle insecurity in the country.

Babandede made the call at an Emergency Internal Security Meeting on Thursday in Abuja convened to address the internal security challenges in the country.

He said that every agency should have a center for crime analysis, adding that there was a lot of information from the Police, the Department of State Services, Military, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps which should be analysed together.

The call for the establishment of the agency was one of the comptroller-general’s recommendations to strengthen internal security in the country.

He also said that there was need to separate intelligence gathering from operation

”Every agency is collecting intelligence, every agency is operating, I think it is a challenge; in many countries you find there is an agency committed to collecting intelligence.

”There is need to have an Analytical System of Intelligence, every agency should have a Center for crime analysis,” he said.

”There has to be a center for crime analysis, if you take the statistics, you find crime everywhere and there is no agency that analyses this,” he said.

Babandede also said there was need to “strategise” crime because it was a problem that everybody is fighting.

According to him, NIS has signed a treaty on Transnational Organised Crime Convention where crime is strategised as organised crime, adding that” If we fight organised crime as ordinary crime you cannot stop crime”.

He said that many countries had agencies for fighting organised crime.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, who was represented by AVM Olusoji Awomodu, Director of Operation, Defence Headquaters, said that the Military was doing its best to tackle internal insecurity.

”As military personnel we are ready, we are and we will always be ready to put our lives on the line to ensure that everything is peaceful in this country,” Olonisakin said.

He said though they had encountered challenges, but with the help of President Muhammadu Buhari, they had the wherewithal to confront the challenges.

Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, who was represented by the Secretary to the State’s Government, Alhaji Balarabe Lawal, said insecurity on Abuja-Kaduna highway had become a problem.

”We need the support of the federal government to tackle it”.

He said that the Kaduna State Government had received support from various security agencies such as the Army, Air Force and Navy on the issue of herders/farmers clashes

The meeting also had in attendance representatives of the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Nigeria Prisons Service, among others.