We Must Review Our National Security Policy – Agwai A former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Martin Lurther Agwai (retd) has called for a review of National Security Policy (NSP) in order to address the structural ambiguities that currently work against the collective security machinery. Agwai, who is also the Chairman of Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (Sure-P), made this call while delivering a Graduation Lecture for Course 22 Participants of the National Defence College (NDC) titled ‘Collective Approach to National Security’. He said that NSP would provide the composite structure or mechanism for the management or governance of security in a state. There has been worsening rivalry between the many security agencies in the country as many of them perform at cross purposes and fail to share intelligence reports. According to Agwai, among the many utilities of an NSP is its delineation of a linear pattern of reporting among the several security institutions. “A NSP in Nigeria is expected to consolidate the constitution’s management structure, and go further to clarify all grey areas in terms of reporting. As it is now, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria does not clearly provide a reporting chain amongst security agencies. “Although each security agency ultimately reports to the President, perhaps there is need for a clearing house for all these security agencies. It is, therefore, expected that a NSP would sufficiently provide this framework. Secondly, there should be a clear pattern of vertical and horizontal relationship between these security agencies. Agwai said that a NSP was imperative and should be a cardinal area of priority to the Nigeria state. The former CDS also identified lack of standardized training doctrine for joint operations adding that the armed forces have joint training and doctrine but it was not so with other security agencies. He noted that there was no synergy in the doctrine of these other security agencies. Agwai said that the consequence of this disparity was that officers of the armed forces do not trust the efficiency and competence of these other security agents. He explained that hence collective operations are often difficult to achieve under these circumstances. In his speech, the Minister of Defence, Gen Aliyu Gusau, said that collective efforts are required to tackle the raging terrorism and insurgency in the nation. leadership.ng/news/380006/must-review-national-security-policy-agwai
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 03:41:34 +0000
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