The British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Gill Atkintson has said that Nigeria needs to look beyond its security and Intelligence response to insurgency, banditry, and kidnapping in the Northern part of the country. Atkinston who spoke during the 1st Umaru Shinkafi Intelligence and Security Summit said, “The other thing which I believe must be part of the solution is why people are carrying out these activities, why young men believe the best choice they have is to carry out the violent activities and attacks on their fellow citizens and fellow citizens and fellow ethnic groups in the region,”
“It is through understanding the drivers of instability, some of which are obvious, competition for resources, competition for land, lack of opportunity, and doing our best to address them that would help stop the problem because a security-only answer would never take the drivers away,” he further said.
In his contribution, the Head of Special Operations in the Department of State Services, Dr Hakeem Abiola said that despite the intelligence, there had been some shortcomings making banditry difficult to curtail. According to him, “Apart from the issues of porosity of the border, you can see them utilising some of the forests that have overtime been left abandoned,”
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State noted the need for sustained intelligence gathering and more community involvement while his Kebbi State counterpart, Atiku Bagudu called for greater involvement of leaders in rural communities in order to curb the issues of insecurity.