As Nigeria continues to battle organized crimes and other forms of criminality, Dr. Solomon Arase, CFR, retired Inspector General of Police and Chairman of the Police Service Commission has called for renewed vigour and inclusiveness in the fight so as to achieve the required results.
Dr. Arase noted that as a people we must rise and stand firm against those who threaten “the sovereign integrity of the Nigerian State” as according to him no security Agency can deliver on its mandate without the support of the people.
He spoke at the International Symposium on Countering Organized Crimes in Africa held in Abuja.
Dr. Arase who was represented by Bar. Brighten Saagwe, Director, Planning, Research and Statistics of the Commission declared that “our will, therefore must be strong because our faith lies in the indivisibility of Nigeria”
Dr. Arase said for the Security Agencies ” it has become not only a statutory mandate but a moral imperative to re-enact our old fighting force, re-strategise and redesign our tactics and promptly arrest and contain the growing insecurity challenge in our country”.
He said that on no account should “we shy away from whatever becomes necessary within the ambit of the law to provide the needed security for the citizens. He noted that terrorism or crime has no conscience and spares no one, whether rich, poor, educated or uneducated and therefore ” no matter what it takes, let us stand together and win this war against organized crime and terrorism “.
The PSC Chairman appealed that the supreme task for our generation ” is to give hope to the hopeless, strength to the weak and protection to the defenceless”.
He said organized crimes, no doubt, have negative effects on the economic development of nations and the need to fight same need not to be over-emphasized “.
“Mankind must put an end to organised crime or organized crime will put an end to mankind” and on the ” keyboard of life, let us as a nation always keep a finger on the escape key to survive” he said.
He advised that in this war against organized crime, there should be more synergy between security agencies as well as prompt criminal intelligence-sharing. He also suggested that the Government should adopt a mix of both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches for effective and result-oriented security management.
Dr. Arase promised that the Police Service Commission under his watch shall collaborate with other agencies of Government to fight organized crime in Nigeria.
The symposium with the theme: Drug Crimes, Terrorism, Arms Trafficking, Marine Crimes, Environmental crime and auto theft was put together by the Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch and other partners.
