The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, said his Administration has secured presidential approval to provide drones and other surveillance equipment to track kidnappers.
Wike, who stated this in a television interview monitored in Abuja, also recalled his earlier disclosure in a media chat that security agencies in the territory lacked digital tracking tools.
He said; “It is unfortunate to say this, that mostly the security agencies, in particular I will say, the Police here, are not adequately equipped. You cannot believe that the police command of the FCT does not even have an ordinary tracking device.
‘’Not only them, even the FCT command of the Department of State Services, DSS, do not even have. And the only one they have is at the headquarters. So, if there are things to do, they have to go to the headquarters, which is not supposed to be.
‘’Luckily, I told Mr President that look, we have to do something, and there must be the emergency procurement of this equipment.
“That is one of the approvals Mr President gave to us that we said look, we are going to purchase our drones to help in surveillance and operations, particularly within these boundaries that the topography is so bad, so hilly, and where you have the forests.
“We have made sure that it is provided for in the 2024 statutory budget. I briefed the National Assembly yesterday (Wednesday) on this and they were highly elated.
According to him, the FCT Administration has consequently applied to the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, for emergency procurement but which was denied until the presidential intervention in January.
19 Northern Govs, NSA, service chiefs meet on possible review of security architecture
Meanwhile, the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, governors of the 19 northern states and service chiefs also had a marathon meeting yesterday to review the security situation in the north, to profer a lasting solution to the insecurity in the region.
The meeting, which held behind closed doors, started at 1:30 pm and ended at about 6pm.
The chairman, Northern Governors Forum and governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, said the meeting was convened to discuss and review strategies towards tackling cases of insecurity in the north.
“The essence of the meeting, as you can see, is between the governors and the service chiefs and the national security adviser, NSA.
“So it relates to security and you know security is very typical, especially the recent issues of kidnapping in the North-West and we are becoming so concerned that we need to discuss, review and possibly take alternative options to what we have been doing before, so we can have a better result.”
The governor added that the need for a collaborative approach to tackling insecurity in the region necessitated the meeting.
He stressed the need for non-kinetic and kinetic approaches to address the remote causes of insecurity.
Governor Inuwa said the security agencies were doing their best, but noted that there was the need for a non-kinetic approach to addressing the root causes of the problem.
“In fact, that’s the best way to go because the issue is until we join the two (approaches) and already the service chiefs and all other security agencies have been doing their best trying to cover all ground.
“So what we need to do is to change the style, especially in addition to the non-kinetic approach, so that when we join the two, we’ll have a better security situation in the country at the ebnd of the day,” he stated.
Recall that aside from 287 school children, students and their teachers kidnapped at LEA Primary and Junior Secondary School, Kuriga in Chikun local government area of Kaduna State, 112 were abducted at internally displaced persons, IDPs, camp in Gamboru Ngala Local Government Area of Borno State, while 16 Tsangaya Almagiri students were also abducted in Sokoto State last Saturday.
The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu addressed the Emir of Bauchi, HRM Dr Suleiman Adamu ( right) at his palace. Sitting to the First ladu’s right is wife of Bauchi State Governor, Dr Aisha Bala Mohammed.