The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has called for a legislative framework to empower private licensed security personnel to bear arms.
Its director-general, Ahmed Abubakar, made the call in Abuja while speaking at the 1st Nigerian Private Security Industry Summit.
Abubakar, represented by Mr. Ayuba Kadafar, said private licensed security companies should also be legally empowered to carry out VIP protection, private investigation, escort duties and use of bullet proof verse.
He further advocated that their uniforms should be standardised, adding that those to be engaged must be made to undergo drug tests.
Declaring the summit open, the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed that the federal government” is taking steps to formally integrate licensed private security companies into the national security architecture.”
Aregbesola, represented by his senior special adviser on strategy and innovation, Prof. Ademola Adeyinka, solicited the support of private licensed companies in tracking fleeing inmates.
He said the ministry was working with Nigerian Correctional Service to provide them with details of the escapees.
Also speaking, the Commandant-General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ahmed Audi, stressed the need for operations of private guards to be intelligence-driven “so as to enhance their contribution to the safe school programme of the federal government.”
He disclosed that vulnerability studies conducted by the NSCDC in 21,000 schools showed that 16,000 were porous.
The commandant-general tasked participants to critically x-ray the prevailing security challenges in the country and chart the way forward.
Earlier, the president of the Association of Licensed Private Security Practitioners of Nigeria (ALPSPN), Barrister Wilson Esangbedo, identified the lack of access to loan and multiple taxations as some of the challenges confronting the private subsector security sector.
