Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
The Vigilance Group of Nigeria (VGN) has inaugurated its special tactical squad of over four million vigilantes.
Explaining the concept, the National Public Relations Officer of VCN, Mr. Philip Amanyi, said that the training and launch of the special squad was to strengthen the organisation in assisting the regular security agencies in combating the rising wave of terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping in the country.
Amanyi said yesterday during the inauguration of members of the squad in Abuja, that members of the tactical squad were carefully selected from the data base of over 35 million operatives of VGN across Nigeria.
He said: “We prepare them for the daunting security task they will carry out. We trained them on how to gather intelligence and work to complement the effort of the formal security agencies in tackling insecurity in the country. So we gave them the best of training in collaboration with the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Department of Security Service (DSS). They came from time to time to train them.
“Today, a deputy commander-general will be appointed to head the tactical squad department which is aimed primarily at strengthening the operations of VGN and the operations of the formal security services.”
He maintained that testimonies of the relevance of VGN abound already as there is no state or local government area or community in Nigeria where one will not see men of the VGN.
“We are always on ground and are always the first port of call in the event of any insurgency, banditry, among others. So our duty is to assist and support the formal security agencies towards winning the war against terrorism and the like.
“These ones have been trained to join hand with the Nigerian Army in fighting insurgency, so they were trained also on the use of arms for this purpose, trained on intelligence gathering, and on how to associate with the formal security operatives,” he explained further.
He said that legislation to establish our organisation had already made commendable progress, adding that it had been passed by the National Assembly, and is currently with the executive, “and I believe President Muhammed Buhari will do well to sign it before leaving office.”
“There were cases where members of banditry or terror groups came to join the group; but after background check we discovered they belonged to some criminal group and we handed them over to the formal security agencies,” he said.
He said that in some states of the federation, their members had been licensed to use local arms to support and complement the activities of the NPF and the army, and they include states like Nasarawa, Ogun, Osun and Katsina.
Speaking, the Commander, National Headquarters and Special Duties, Sola Sodiyan, said: “What we are trying to do is to make a special squad that can face the spate of insecurity in the country squarely. Just like in police, we have MOPOL, specially trained to face challenges the regular police cannot face, the same thing we are trying to apply in the VGN. There are special ways to approach crimes like banditry and kidnapping.
“There are certain things you need to consider before branding someone a bandit or terrorist. Now they have been trained on all that including how to identify the criminal and how to quickly contact the regular security services when it requires more force to get the criminals in.”
