Insurgency: Security expert urges FG to overhaul security architecture

A foreign-trained Security Expert and Chief Executive, Scutarii Advisory Limited, Mr. Hilly Cookey-Gam has urged the Federal Government to urgently overhaul the nation’s security architecture to be able to stem the tide of insurgency in the Country.
Cookey-Gam, who stated this amid growing insecurity in the country said for terrorists and bandits to ambush security forces, evade aerial surveillance and coordinate their activities show lack of accurate intelligence gathering, analysis and synergy between the arms of the military and other security agencies.
Noting that it is urgently important for an overhaul of the nation’s security architecture, he said though the Department of State Services (DSS) and National Intelligence Agency (NIA) have critical roles to play in the fight against insurgency, but the responsibility falls mainly on the defense intelligence (in the army’s theatre of operations), as it provides intelligence on movements, weapons and activities of terrorists and bandits across the country.
According to him, the security and intelligence chiefs should understand clearly that the responsibility of securing the nation is their constitutional duties.
His words, “immediately the military is called upon to fulfill this responsibility, it only establishes the failure of the DSS and NIA in this regard. Sadly, it is apparent that there is a total intelligence failure because though, the information provided by Nigerians is welcomed; this should not form the basis of strategic and tactical intelligence”.
He however called on experts, both civilian and military to come together to provide solutions to the problems of intelligence gathering and sharing, even as they form synergy between different arms of the military and the nation’s intelligence services.
Nigeria, according to him, needs urgently, the office of national intelligence to coordinate the collection, analysis and dissemination of strategic intelligence to the national Security Council as well as tactical intelligence in the fight against critical security threats.
This, he said, would eliminate the problems of intelligence sharing while enhancing the synergy between intra-military, intra-civilian and inter civil-military intelligence agencies as well as other sensitive agencies of the federal government.
“As a developing nation, we are currently witnessing the dangers of disregard for expert advice while learning the hard way in the national development and cohesion. Gone are the days when some see the Army as superior to other arms of the military and ignore the critical role of civilian agencies and corporations to national security’’.
‘’We can only choose to prevent further actions that are detrimental to national development and order or suffer more bloodshed, economic downturn or risk disintegration, if we fail to accept expert advice. No country in history has succeeded by subjugating its people, establishing regional or ethnic hegemony or disregarded the importance of national consensus’’, he concluded.