From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
A National Assembly member, Hon Ahmed Satomi representing Borno’s Jere Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives has canvassed for engagement of community in surveillance and intelligence gathering to address the insecurity in the country.
Satomi made the call in an interview with newsmen in Maiduguri weekend shortly after the induction of 1000 local hunters as volunteers for security surveillance in Borno State.
“There is lack of coherence information sharing on security issue and incident in Nigeria. Usually we talk and give information on hypothesis sometimes from media reports and not coordinated and coherent information.
The national security; the FIB and out intelligence agencies should be part of things like the hunters volunteers programme in Borno,” he said.
He said various programmes that could bring partnership between the security agencies and community together should be adopted such that embedded security personnel can use such programme to gather appropriate intelligence to halt increasing insecurity in the country.
He disclosed that Borno State government adopted such method by inducting 1,000 local hunters as volunteers not as fighters in the counter-insurgency war.
“It is for the rural area where we hope that at least 80 percent of our people will go to farm. Most of them are young, vibrant and energetic. The idea is that instead of allowing them to be tools in the hand of the insurgents as conventional hunters, their energy should be directed towards positive engagement as community volunteers for surveillance,” he disclosed
He said about 600 were drawn from his Here Federal Constituency into the volunteers. He said they have been screened by the secret service and trained in self defence by the military.
“The 1000 is just the first batch. About 6000 persons volunteered to be involved when the announcement was made but only 1000 have been screened for now,” he explained.