Efficient counter-terrorism efforts require meticulous consideration to element and real-time situational consciousness. Each minute counts in safety administration and counter-terrorism, as intelligence flows constantly all through the intelligence cycle. To remain forward of threats, it’s important to scrutinize and analyze all-source intelligence, no matter origin or credibility, for actionable clues.
My public service expertise in inside safety administration has supplied me with useful insights into intelligence gathering, menace mitigation, and danger administration. This entails verifying and validating each piece of knowledge from numerous sources. These sources embrace human intelligence (HUMINT), alerts intelligence (SIGINT), open-source intelligence (OSINT), geospatial intelligence (GEOINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT). All these are important elements of a complete intelligence framework.
I’ve witnessed conditions the place actionable intelligence was acquired forward of time, nevertheless it was not given adequate consideration. This lack of consideration was as a consequence of gradual response, resulting in an incident. There’s additionally a state of affairs the place a non-security element will ignore safety advisories. The 2022 assault on the Abuja-Kaduna practice is a primary instance. Though the army, Ministry of Inner Safety and Dwelling Affairs, and intelligence companies carried out their roles successfully, the goal’s operator didn’t make the most of the empirical proof advisories supplied.
Conversely, I’ve seen situations the place, upon receiving intelligence, we promptly sprang into motion. We leveraged inter-agency collaboration, easy coordination, and efficient info sharing. In consequence, terrorists had been efficiently demobilized and neutralized inside their protected havens. This prevented them from reaching their meant goal.
Current allegations made by US Congressman Scott Perry have raised considerations. He said that the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) funded terrorist organizations, together with Boko Haram. These allegations have sparked considerations about potential compromises and confusion to our counter-terrorism efforts. Nevertheless, it’s important to strategy such claims with warning. We should be certain that each piece of intelligence is totally verified and validated earlier than being dismissed or deemed credible.
Throughout the context of Nigeria’s nationwide safety, our unified and cohesive strategy to intelligence gathering, sharing, and evaluation has yielded vital advantages. We’re experiencing the advantages of sturdy inter-agency collaboration, coordination, info fusion, and menace evaluation. The interagency collaboration and cooperation we’re witnessing confirmed the jointness of heads of the safety forces and intelligence companies. The following section is additional strengthening mobilization of the citizenry to affix the nationwide safety marketing campaign via strong Civil-Navy Cooperation.
To reinforce these counter-terrorism efforts, we should prioritize the event of a sturdy and adaptive intelligence structure. This may be achieved via sustained investments in human capital, expertise, and infrastructure. We should additionally domesticate strategic partnerships with worldwide companions and stakeholders. Moreover, we should actively steer our neighbors – Niger, Chad, Benin, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Mali – away from tensions and in direction of efficient regional cooperation.
In the end, a complete and built-in strategy to counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations is essential. It’s important to mitigate the menace posed by terrorists throughout the subregion. By adopting a nuanced and multi-faceted strategy, we are able to optimize our efforts. We will finally guarantee a safer, safer Nigeria.
Whereas acknowledging Congressman Perry’s thesis, we can’t disregard the experience of our students. These students embrace Professors Kyari Mohammed, Jibrin Ibrahim, Usman Tar, and Chris Kwaja, Dr. Atta Barkindo, Abdulbasit Kassim, and others. They’ve extensively researched and reported the origins and evolution of Boko Haram.
In managing complicated safety challenges, one of the vital detrimental approaches is outright politicization. This comes with conspiring theories that additional complicate issues. Politicizing safety points might provide short-term aid for these advancing sinister agenda. Nevertheless, it finally exacerbates the state of affairs, as it isn’t grounded in a real understanding of the issue. This phenomenon is harking back to the “cobra impact.” On this impact, purported options inadvertently worsen the state of affairs. We should subsequently strategy Congressman Perry’s submission with warning. Specialists on the subject material are sharply divided. Some see Perry’s thesis as political, whereas others maintain it as one thing to interrogate. Additional researches and time will decipher the cloud.
Aruwan was Commissioner, Ministry of Inner Safety and Dwelling Affairs, Kaduna State (2019-2024). Electronic mail: aruwansamuel@aol.com
