The Commander of Nigeria’s National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre within the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Hammed Abodunrin, has revealed plans to equip hunters and vigilantes with essential information management skills to enhance their role in addressing community-level insecurity.
Abodunrin shared this development with Saturday PUNCH on Thursday, highlighting the crucial need for quick responses to security threats at the grassroots level.
The National Coordinator of the Financing Safe Schools Initiative, Halima Iliya, announced earlier plans to actively involve hunters and vigilantes in intelligence-gathering efforts to combat attacks on schools nationwide.
“As part of our strategy, in states where local vigilante groups are present, we aim to provide training to their hunters, vigilantes, and volunteers. In states without registered vigilantes, we intend to engage youths,” Iliya said.
Meanwhile, Abodunrin emphasised that these hunters and vigilantes would receive specialised training in information management to facilitate prompt responses from relevant security agencies.
“Communities have been using hunters and vigilantes for decades. They are always in the bush. They have been meeting bandits and other people without knowing their intentions. These stakeholders are to contribute their own quotas at least in the areas of giving information.
“They will necessarily be trained on how to give appropriate information that can be processed. They will be trained in security consciousness and how to report. The essence is to back up the slogan of ‘if you see something, say something,” he said.
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