Disu Seeks Joint North-West Strategy to Tackle Insecurity

Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Rilwan Disu, has called for a coordinated regional strategy involving security agencies, governments and communities to tackle banditry, kidnapping and other security threats in the North-West.

Disu made the call on Wednesday while delivering the opening address at the North-West Security Summit in Gusau, Zamfara State, where he advocated intelligence-led operations backed by stronger community participation.

The three-day summit, hosted by the Zamfara State Government, brought together governors, traditional rulers, security chiefs, security experts, development partners, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to examine the security challenges confronting the region.

Among the issues under discussion are banditry, kidnapping, arms proliferation, communal conflicts and farmer-herder tensions.

Disu stressed that the scale and nature of insecurity in the region required cooperation beyond individual states or security agencies.

He called for improved intelligence sharing, closer inter-state cooperation, coordinated operations and stronger border security, alongside effective early-warning systems.

Traditional rulers and local communities, he noted, also have an important role to play by providing credible intelligence and supporting efforts to prevent crime.

The police chief cautioned stakeholders against ethnic and religious profiling in responding to security threats, stressing that criminals should be identified and prosecuted based on their actions rather than their backgrounds.

“Criminality has no ethnicity and terrorism has no religion,” Disu said, urging stakeholders to focus on criminal networks and those who sponsor, arm, facilitate or provide information to them.

He reaffirmed the commitment of the Nigeria Police Force to intelligence-led policing and the use of technology in tackling emerging security threats.

According to him, rapid response, inter-agency cooperation and stronger partnerships with communities would remain central to the police strategy for improving security across the region.

The IGP also urged participants to ensure that deliberations at the summit produce practical measures that can be implemented and assessed.

He said the outcome should strengthen the protection of vulnerable communities, improve security coordination and restore public confidence across the North-West.