Fashola advocates inter-agency synergy to combat insecurity 

From Lateef Dada, Osogbo

The Minister of Works and Housing, Raji Fashola SAN, has advised the military and security agencies to work in synergy and embraced Geospatial intelligence which will reveal land terrains and imagery analysis to enable them to tackle the issue of insecurity.

The same view was echoed by the Surveyor General of the Federation, Abuduganiyu Adebomehin during the 2022 Survey Coordination Conference and Meeting of the Advisory Board on Survey Training tagged; ‘Geospatial Intelligence for National Security’ held at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, Wednesday.

Fashola who was represented by the Head of the Department, Nigerian Cadastral, Coker Robert, maintained that synergy between the defence and security agencies would help in tackling the insurgency in the country.

“With the help of Geospatial intelligence the movements and activities of the armed criminals can easily be tracked or monitored thus providing the military and all other security agencies the advantage of taking decisions and prosecuting the war against criminal elements from positions of strength,” Fashola added.

In his welcome address, Adebomehin said Nigeria will win the war against insecurity and insurgency if adequate steps are taken at the right time.

He said, “none of us is oblivious to the threat to peace and security in the country. However, we have high hope that with the development of appropriate techniques, utilizing geospatial intelligence in combination with a sustained offensive of the Military, Police and other Security Agencies against the armed criminals, Nigeria will be able peace and security.

“Geospatial intelligence is nothing other than data in its right quantity, data saved, data disseminated, the implementation of that data in all spheres of life is what we have gathered to discuss and how it can be of importance to the nation as a whole and we are very hopeful that insecurity will be tackled successfully. We have one or two that we have identified.

“As a surveyor, I will plead and enjoin every one of us to follow the Survey Coordination Act Data. When you have data and you keep data your cover and you could not give the data to the relevant authority, in that quest, for the insurgence in whatever form.

“We have deployed data and you can see the changes in the warfare away from the normal numerical strength of troops. You can see that bombs are being dropped and we have not heard any complaints of dropping the bombs in the wrong places,” he added.