Dr. Ahmed Abubakar Audi was appointed the Commandant General, Nigeria Security and CIvil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on March 1, 2021. With less than a year in the saddle, the words on the lips of his personnel is “the sky is blue”, showing the pride they now have in putting up the blue uniform of the NSCDC. Michael Olugbode reports on the landmarks of Audi and how he promotes synergy among Nigeria’s military and paramilitary services
A wise man once said: “To overcome the recent quagmire confronting the nation’s security architecture, there is need for all security agencies to come together and work assiduously to achieve a common goal”. This wise man is no one but a highly cerebral Dr. Ahmed Audi, mni, the Commandant General, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Audi made the clarion call for synergy among all military, paramilitary and security outfits in the country to put the troubling insecurity to rest during a panel discussion on “Nigeria’s security and law enforcement agencies and the challenges of policy and program implementation” organized for the participants of senior executive course 43, 2021, at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic studies (NIPSS) Kuru, Jos recently.
Audi said: “We must not sit down and watch some doom and gloom merchants who denigrate their own country to put clogs in the wheels of peace and progress of our dear country, Nigeria.”
He hammered on the fact that security agencies need each other to perform creditably in the onerous task of ensuring internal security, stressing that there is need for renewed synergy, cooperation and collaboration to tackle the inherent insecurity challenges “because no service has a monopoly of any strategy and we must go back to the basics and meet at the drawing board to speak with one voice if we must win this asymmetric war.”
Audi continues: “Even though there is interdependency, every agency has a clear-cut mandate and we all know our limitations, there is no need for the rift or unhealthy rivalry we are experiencing today which is causing us a lot of drawback. We should all look at the bigger picture which is national security, in order to put Nigeria back on track and share information and intelligence to solve our security problems.”
He maintained that NSCDC can boast of well over 20,000 graduates and about 47 PhD holders in the service as at today. He went further to intimate that the Corps personnel have undergone different composition of trainings by virtually all security agencies in the country and this gives it a comparative advantage of versatility and competence to intellectually and strategically collaborate with any agency of government genuinely interested in the growth and development of Nigeria.
Audi however appealed to the Federal Government and the National Assembly to come up with a robust policy that would create an enabling environment for security operatives to function effectively, lessen their burdens and improve their welfare as this will serve as a catalyst for the operatives to put in their best and perform effectively.
The NSCDC is assumed to be one of the least in importance but the truth is that there is never anyone with least importance in the security architects, which even demand a role from the un-commissioned civilians; as it is popularly said, security is everyone’s business.
Audi’s intellectual capability is surely positioning the NSCDC for optimal performance when the nation needs miracle from whichever direction to surmount the numerous security challenges. The NSCDC boss, who came into the saddle less than a year ago, has prompted several achievements in the agency.
Audi, upon assumption of office on March 1st 2021, immediately set out to change the narrative of the agency from an otherwise moribund organisation to a high-flying security outfit in the country through focused and qualitative leadership, thus, creating an enabling environment for an industrious and highly motivated workforce committed to quality service delivery, integrity and patriotism. Realizing the pivotal roles of the agency in governance process, he worked towards greater inclusiveness of the service in the security architecture of the country which is a pointer to his determination to make the NSCDC a world class organization.
Some of the achievements of Audi include: Safe School Initiative under which there was an establishment, training and commissioning of a formidable, well kitted Female Squad to checkmate the menace of kidnapping of school children in the country and stoppage of any kinds of threat or breach of security in our educational institutions. This effort has been replicated in all state commands across the country. And to ensure that this works, a vulnerability survey of all schools in the country was carried out to determine the number of schools that are prone to attack by terrorists and this has helped in developing strategies for schools’ protection in Nigeria.
Staff welfare has been improved by placement of personnel on their respective appropriate ranks; fostering steps towards payment of staff promotion arrears: sanitization of the promotion process and successful release of 2019 promotion exercise and distribution of letters to successful personnel across state commands, thus scrapping previous cumbersome procedures and administrative bottlenecks.
The completed promotions during Audi’s time, has been received as one of the most transparent and meritorious promotions within the NSCDC with promotion of all junior officers from level 03 – 06, payment of disengagement allowances to retirees who were abandoned and had lost hope of survival, payment of burial benefits to over 120 next of kins of deceased personnel long forgotten and issuance of Group Personal Accident cheques to over 30 officers and men who suffered varying degrees of accidents in the cause of discharging their duties within the last five years; promotion of some Deputy Commandants who have been stagnant on the rank for minimum of ten years to the rank of Commandant of Corps and provision of 200 units of two bedrooms and three bedrooms housing for junior and intermediate officers; morale of personnel cannot be anywhere but at rooftop.
Another area of achievement of the present leadership is in Capacity Building which include roll out of operational vehicles and equipment to different departments and directorates; Commandant General’s merit Awards to outstanding personnel; establishment of the Rapid Response Squad; appointment of acting DCGs and administration of oath of allegiance for the first time in the history of the Corps and launching of Gender policy document.
Close to Capacity Building is the Training and Manpower Development where more attention has been focused having identified it as a major tool for human capital development. A number of regimental and capacity building training programmes have been organised for officers and men of the NSCDC.
Another area where Audi made intervention is in the repositioning of the private guards security company department which he sanitized, repositioned and restructured to serve in line with the globally acceptable standards because of the dynamics of crime and robust intelligence gathering function it performs.
In a bid to fulfill the federal government’s avowed plan for food security in Nigeria and Borno State in particular through provision of physical security to farmers on their farmlands and protection of Agro-Allied investments, the Commandant General trained and deployed more Agro-Rangers personnel and created new Agro-Rangers Base station to expand the areas of coverage and boost farmers confidence which resulted in the large turnout of farmers as well as the bumper harvest this year which in turn debunked the rumors making the rounds that farmers have deserted their farms.
In fact, the list of achievements in the short time Audi rose to the helm cannot be easily captured because daily, he brings innovation to move the NSCDC to the next level of respectability and acceptance. Now, the NSCDC blue uniform is worthy of being adorned, courtesy Dr. Ahmed Audi.
