The synergy between the Department of State Services (DSS) and other security agencies has helped to neutralise bandits and the destruction of their camps in Kaduna State, Governor Nasir El-Rufai said yesterday.
El-Rufai stated this in his address at the first quarter security meeting of Northwest State Security Directors (SDS) of the DSS, at the Kaduna State Command.
Represented by the Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, the governor called for similar co-operation between governments of the other North-Western states and the federal security agencies to bring banditry and terrorism to their kneels.
He said: “Many northern states – nay states in the Northwest – are confronting a unique set of security challenges. Criminal activities by bandits have threatened both rural and urban communities. Bandits have openly tried to crush the rural economy by attacking farmers in their fields and in their homes. In many states, these criminals continue to cause menace on highways.
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“The Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs in Kaduna State was created in 2019, as the first ministry dedicated to security co-ordination created by any state. Its creation was informed by the priority rightly accorded matters of security by this administration. Its mandates include co-ordination of internal security matters and intelligence gathering, as well as liaison with federal security agencies. “In pursuing these mandates in the last four years, we have witnessed the progressive streamlining of security co-ordination, the strengthening of inter-agency collaboration, the creation and sustaining of robust intelligence gathering framework and improved responses to security incidents.
“Here in Kaduna, especially in the last 18 months, we welcomed the intensification of ground and air action against the bandits, and we are most grateful to the federal agencies for these operations and the successes recorded. Hundreds of bandits have been neutralised and numerous camps destroyed. We acknowledge with appreciation that these achievements were in large part, a result of the close co-operation and support between the state government and the DSS.
“We must continue to strive for superior knowledge in these efforts to achieve greater precision, improved coherence between commands, reduced risk and enhanced responsiveness.”
Host and State Director of DSS, Abdul Enenche, said the quarterly conference, an initiative of the DSS Director-General, was conceived based on the realisation that threats in the country are not limited to one state.
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He said: “It was realised that each of the regions has its peculiar security challenge. The idea came up that we share cases of kidnapping, banditry, terrorism/ insurgency, cattle rustling farmers/herders conflict, arms trafficking, and communal conflicts in the region. All the threats cut across all the seven states in the Northwest region.
“Therefore, the three-day conference is meant to interrogate and review the state of security in the Northwest in the first quarter, find gaps and forge ahead for the next quarter. But it is not a job of a single security agency, and so collaboration has worked so much for us in Kaduna State.”
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