Former Assistant Inspector General of Police(AIG), Tunde Ogunsakin has advised Nigeria Government to pay more attention to intelligence gathering, provision of modern gadgets to the Country Security Agencies and ensure the establishment of the community police as remedies to the mirage of security breaches in the land.
AIG Ogunsakin bemoaned payment of ransom to kidnappers, said “as long as the agent of kidnaps are being paid ransom for their nefarious activities, they would continue to kidnap because they have seen it as lucrative, if not quickly checked “.
The security expert gave the advice in an interview with PRECISE NEWS in his country home, Ikere Ekiti recently.
Speaking further, “he called on victims of kidnap to stop paying ransom . I want to specifically advise the victims and their relatives to stop such practice. If they continue, kidnapping will be rampant and it would be made lucrative”
He said ” I was worried about the security lapse in the country, urgent and decisive actions needed to be taken to flush out the perpetrators of the heinous activities”.
Proffering solutions to the menace, (AIG) Ogunsakin enjoined government to fund intelligence gathering and procure sophisticated gadgets to flush out the criminals from their hideouts.
“Intelligence and well equipped security men are the ways to go, the era of carrying gun alone and staying in the cities are gone. We should be offensive and take the battle against kidnappers to their hideouts and fish them out. Even there should be ways terrorists and kidnappers can be caught through the ransoms they collected”.
Ogunsakin stressed further that community policing would be helpful in fighting crimes, saying the police and other sister forces should be ready to leave their comfort zones in the cities, comb the forest where Marauders are perpetrating evil and flush them out.
Meanwhile, “the retired AIG Tunde Ogunsakin admitted that, Nigeria is faced with diverse security challenges, revealed that the issue of Kidnapping has been very disturbing and hoped that, with time, the security agencies in the Country will rise up to curb the menace .He assued.
Ogunsakin further, averred that it is very disheartening to note that Kidnappers will kidnap people at random, collect ransom and get away with it without being apprehended or being tracked down by the security agencies”
“My take is, if really, we cannot stop them from taking ransom before they release their abductors , we must be able to find a way to trace them, otherwise, it will continue unabated”, he declared.
Ogunsakin maintained that “we must take this offence into the territories of these kidnappers by making use of technology to track them. I used to feel very sad whenever I heard people being kidnapped.
He queried why they can’t be traced regardless of the cost it will take or money to be expended to acquire modern technologies to combat them once and for all.
According to the the security guru,”These people are nothing but racktagged. They can’t defeat what is called intelligence. Nigerians should realize that they cannot do any serious Policing operations during investigations or anything without intelligence. Intelligence is key. If you don’t do any intelligence, you will just be grouping in the dark. Intelligence is the core. I think Police has to go back to the days of the( CIB), Central Intelligence Bureau for every Police Station across the Country.Those are the places where intelligence can be gotten”.
He added that, “many people in our communities are not usually ready volunteer useful information to police officers on crimes in their areas. If they know people are not going to pay, they won’t bother venturing into the kidnapping businesses. It is encouraging to them to kidnaps people for ransom, that is why they are doing it “, he noted.
Also, reacting to the issue of the bandits and the bokoharam sects taking over some parts of the northern States in the Country, Ogunsakin commended the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, and other Security Agencies for being able to attain an appreciable progress in the fight against bandits and terrorists in the north east and across the North Central and other places.
He applauded Nigeria the Air force, Nigerian Army and the Police in those areas and said, he can tell Nigerians that a lot of efforts are being put in place already to curtail insecurity in the North.
He called on the top echelons of the Country’s security architectures to note that intelligence is key and stressed the need for the current leadership in the Country to invest heavily on intelligence just like the British and America governments have been doing.
Retired (AIG) Ogunsakin said community police would be helpful to curtail insecurity and admonished Nigerians to always give informations hat can help the Security Agencies to apprehend criminals in the Country.