The Civil society legislative advocacy center (CISLAC) with support from Open society foundation (OSF Africa) has held a workshop in Lagos on improving coordination, collaboration and communication among security institutions in Nigeria.
According to the organizers the aim of the event is to foster serious collaboration between security agencies in Nigeria with also synergy with the media and Civil society.
Speaking at the event, the program manager of CISLAC, Abubakar Jimoh said that one agency of the government cannot do it alone in terms of handling the security of the nation, meaning that security agencies need adequate collaboration to tackle worsening security in Nigeria.
“We are discussing inter-agency collaboration on early warning and early response, we observed that in the past that different agencies were performing their mandates given what they have under the national security strategies and we also know that national security is a comprehensive document, itemizing each agency’s mandate under the threats identified and we want to see at our own level how we can compliment the effort of the government in the implementation of that strategy by bringing together relevant agencies to enhance their collaboration and coordination in response activities.
We have achieved the objectives of the program in terms of every agency in attendance understanding their fundamental mandate under the early warning, early response and ensuring that they work together in terms of communication, synergy, collaboration and cooperation in intelligence sharing and response activities.” He said.
Stakeholders at the event included the military, Police, NDLEA, NSCDC, DSS and other top security agencies in Nigeria, civil society organizations and the media.