Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, yesterday, said President Bola Tinubu has approved the procurement of digital tracking tools to help halt kidnapping in the territory.
The minister, at a media chat in Abuja, said while he would not go into details, the informants recently arrested by security agencies in the territory were cooperating and offering actionable intelligence.
Wike said information obtained from the suspects had led to the arrest of some kidnappers who were paraded by the police at the weekend. He said security agencies have also been able to foil more attacks, saying the government was not sleeping.
While he lamented that the lack of adequate equipment in the past had led to recent unpleasant events, Wike said with the emergency procurement approval by the president, the story would now change.
He said: “So many facilities were not provided. Vehicles for the security agencies are not there. You cannot believe that equipment to track criminals is not there. When anything happens, they go back to the Office of the National Security Adviser or to the Force Headquarters. That is not the way it should be.
“When I was the Governor of Rivers State, the DSS told me they wanted a particular piece of equipment. We were the only state that had it then. In fact, sometimes the headquarters asked for its use. That is a special equipment they needed and that equipment we know how expensive it is, but we had it, and that was able to help us reduce the level of crime.
“It was able to track the specific phones, not one that would say, for example, the criminals are around the city here. With that equipment, it was specific. It can track a particular phone to the exact spot or room. So, with Mr President giving us approval for emergency procurement, we have been able to identify what each of the agencies need, and we will be able, now, to provide them.
“Again, before we came on board, the police had said they had requested procurement of a certain number of motorcycles, where vehicles cannot get to the remote and mountainous areas. Unfortunately, they were not provided, but we are going to do that now. Security is not just these equipment. You also have to motivate the personnel. I don’t want to talk about the strategies because we are talking about security now.
“Assuming Mr President did not approve this emergency procurement, we had been to the Bureau for Public Procurement since December to allow it to procure under emergency. If you don’t and you have to go through the whole hog of the processes, it can take you two months, and that is not what you tell members of the public, that procurement process is a problem. No!
“The basic thing is having identified all these and the security agencies have told us this is what they require; we had to do the needful. We have even gone further to ask the state director of DSS about what they would need to tackle this menace. What kind of equipment do you want? Not that if anything happens, you have to run to your headquarters to seek assistance.
“Before you get to your headquarters, something else would have happened. But if you have this equipment, you don’t need to seek approval of your headquarters to begin to seek equipment to track the criminals.”
Wike said while the administration cannot set up its own security agency like the subnational entities, the FCT administration would, however, establish a Joint Task Force with a full command and control structure as well as relevant equipment to be able to respond in cases of security emergencies.
“The next thing is to set up a joint security outfit here, where they have their own structure and equipment, so that if anything happens, the task force will know it is their function to move in. Yes, it will cost us some funds, and it will take us some time. What is important is that we have identified that this is a lacuna that we have to cover,” he stated.
On informants, the minister said: “The efforts of our security agencies have yielded the arrests of informants who have told us what they were planning and you should have known, too, that we have also taken steps, but we won’t belabour that. All we can assure you is that you don’t need to panic. Everything is being done to ensure the protection of lives and property.”
Credit: Daily Sun