Terrorism: Ex-AIG urges synergy between police, DSS

A former Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Bashir Albasu, has called for synergy between the Nigeria Police and the Department of State Services (DSS) in the on-going counter insurgency operation.
He made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the 2nd Edition of the Nigeria Security Exhibition and Conference yesterday in Abuja.
Albasu, who is also the Katukan Kano and District Head of Albasu, observed that the Nigeria Police was working on parallel lines with intelligence gathering agencies in the country.

He said: “We cannot defeat terrorism or insurgency without absolute cooperation between the security agencies in charge of intelligence gathering such as the Police and the DSS.
“I remember many years ago when I was a Commissioner of Police, my office and the office of the Director of SSS were in the same premises.
“The Director of SSS used to come to office every morning for us to discuss the security situation in that state.
“He would give me his own contribution of what he had gathered overnight and I would tell him what I had gathered, and together we would suggest how to confront the situation.”

The former AIG cited an example of what happened in Edo state, when an Aide to Governor Adam Oshiomhole was murdered, recalling that both the police and SSS presented two different sets of suspects.
“Recently, the former Secretary to Government of Federation, Chief Olu Falae, was kidnapped; the police presented a set of suspects and the DSS presented another set of suspects.

“It shows that these two important organs of the nation’s security are working at parallel lines with each other.”
He, therefore, emphasised the need for absolute cooperation between all the nation’s security agencies to end the menace of insurgency in the country.
He also urged the federal government to address the lack of synergy between the security agencies so that they could work together to achieve the common goal of protecting lives and property.
Albasu also appealed to the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, address incidences of injustice and the high level of poverty in some parts of the country.