‘Your Weapon Should Be Nothing Less Than Sophisticated’ – Oshiomhole Tells NSCDC

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, has suggested that the weapons of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) must not be less sophisticated.

Naija News reports that Oshiomhole called for a review of the NSCDC Establishment Act on Friday in Abuja while speaking at the launch of a book titled “Nigeria’s Security Dilemma: Rivalries and Implications Vol. 1,” authored by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Commandant of the NSCDC, Olusola Odumosu.

The former governor of Edo State argued that if criminals have to carry sophisticated weapons, the NSCDC’s weapons should be nothing less than sophisticated.

According to Oshiomhole, the concept of a “civil” defence corps implies a force without firearms, notwithstanding that operatives are routinely deployed against heavily armed criminals destroying public assets, engaging in illegal mining and oil bunkering.

The lawmaker further called for stronger collaboration among security agencies, emphasising intelligence sharing, noting that no single arm of security can deal with the security challenges facing the country at both the state and national levels.

He said, “If the criminals you have to fight carry a sophisticated weapon, you, who is fighting them, your weapon should be nothing less than sophisticated,” he said, adding that the current arrangement leaves operatives “civil” while confronting “hardened criminals.”

Oshiohmole also decried the issue of trust among the security agencies, the lack of intelligence sharing, a superiority war, and judicial negligence as contributing to the complexity of Nigeria’s security challenges.

The senator said that national security must take precedence over partisan or institutional interests, adding that “When it comes to security, there is no PDP, no APC… we need to understand that.”

Speaking on the motivation for the book, Odumosu said no security agency possesses all the answers to Nigeria’s security challenges, stressing that inter-agency rivalry is the bane of a coordinated national response to security threats.

He said, “No one agency has it all. There is a need for a united front because security is not what one agency can do. No one has a monopoly of wisdom.”