By Francis Sardauna
The Katsina State coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has advised the federal government to acquire and deploy necessary surveillance technology to tackle the menace of banditry and kidnapping bedevilling the North-west region of the country.
The coalition stressed the need to promote international cooperation in terms of training, technological fit-out and back-up for Nigerian security agencies to enhance their operational efficacy against the marauding bandits and other miscreants.
Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, the state Chairman of the Coalition, Abdulrahman Abdullahi Dutsin-Ma, said the region’s large ungoverned spaces were increasingly being occupied by the hoodlums as bases from where they perform their atrocities.
He added that the deployment of surveillance technology, such as drones and satellite imagery, would pave the way for aerial monitoring of the ungoverned spaces, mobile phone tracking and tracing, thus making it possible to follow the movements of the criminals.
He advocated the trainning, empowerment and proper coordination of vigilantes in order to address the manpower shortage hindering security agencies and sustain the achievements being recorded in the ongoing onslaught against the bandits.
He said: “The recent measures taken by government are yielding positive results. However, the most important thing is how to sustain the gains. The coalition therefore suggests that the security operation be more of proactive than reactive.
“Bandits should be chased to their enclaves not to wait for them till they attack. And there is need for the use of military surveillance technology in tracking bandits activities and movement in the forest for easier and more successful operations.
“As a matter of control measure, government should alleviate poverty and reduce cost of living among the people especially cost foodstuff. This will reduce the tendency for recruiting more people into banditry due to poverty and hunger.”
