Mr Ahmed Audi, Commandant General (CG), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), said that Nigeria requires more security personnel to effectively combat and end insecurity in the country.
Audi said this in Abuja at the opening ceremony of a three-day conference, with the theme: “Train the trainer on Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa”.
The training was organised in collaboration with the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution and Austrian Ministry of Defence.
The NSCDC Chief said that based on available data, Nigeria is said to have about 1.1 million policing capacity to protect about 200 million people which will not be easy.
“What is the policing capacity of Nigeria? What is the number of security law enforcement agency put together that has the responsibility of policing a country?
“That is why we are finding it difficult to fight insecurity and that it why it is deepening to banditry and kidnapping especially on the roads,” he said.
Audi said that there was the need for all security agencies to be at peace with each other to effectively tackle national insecurity at all levels.
“We need to come together and return back to basics and we must synergies which must be scientific.
“No agency must have monopoly of information because we have to come together to look into those issues and bring proactive measures to the table.
“It is the responsibility of everyone, when you see something you must say something,” he said.
Audi said that the training and retraining of personnel on security courses is paramount to achieving change.
“We can’t make the corps to be world class without training, hence the need for trainings.
“Capacity training is of essence to the Corps so we are planning that every quota, a set of personnel will be sent on training for three months,” he said.
He advised the participants to make good use of the training opportunity, urging them to train and extend the knowledge gained during the training to colleagues.
Mr Lawrence Philips, Lead Facilitator from Austria Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, recognised that there are humanitarian challenges in the security sector, hence the need for the training.
Philips who joined the ceremony through zoom, said that there was the need to collaborate with Nigeria and have security agencies trained on humanitarian assistance.
“I urge the participants to take the training seriously and put in all they will learn from this into practical work,” he said.