By Sumaila Ogbaje/Martha Agas

The Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC), a non-governmental organisation has called on the military and security agencies to be spontaneous in releasing information on their operations to ensure that citizens are carried along.

The Chairman of CCC, retired Maj.-Gen. Christopher Olukolade, made the call at a news conference organised by the centre on Tuesday in Abuja.

The theme of the News conference is, “Setting Agenda for Nigerian Security Forces in 2025”.

Olukolade said there was a need to review the current communication strategies to carry the public along and ensure that Nigerians understand and appreciate what the agencies are doing to ensure security.

He urged military and security agencies to allow professionals to run their information management.

“We want to advocate, for instance, that in terms of their strategy that these agencies, particularly the armed forces, should discard this tendency of biweekly reporting.

“We are advocating a more spontaneous reportage on the achievements and activities related to the nation’s security.

“A practice where we have a biweekly briefing by one agency or organisation, or even collectively, may not be able to carry the public along sufficiently.

“This approach often leads to information overload, and it makes it difficult for the public to fully comprehend and appreciate the efforts of the agencies.

“So instead of that, we are recommending that they adopt a more responsive communication strategy that provides regular updates, if possible, on a real-time situation or as much as possible.

“This will ensure that the public can be properly and well carried along and ensure that they will no longer be in doubt of both the achievement and the essence of security operations all over the country,” he said.

Olukolade, a former defence Spokesman, said the public would appreciate the work of the security agencies more, if they apply more of operational precision.

He added that the security agencies would need to invest more on training, intelligence gathering and equipment handling to be able to achieve precision.

He lauded the military, other security and intelligence agencies for the recent improvement, urging them to continue to build on their successes in ensuring enhanced security for the nation.

The CCC boss also called for the establishment of clear protocols for identifying and engaging targets, as well as procedures for mitigating civilian casualties during operations.

He added that community collaboration with security agencies should be encouraged to ensure that their efforts were not only appreciated, but contribute to the nation’s security.

“We are already working closely with many of them and the local communities, and the security forces can gain more value and insight into a security situation if they are more disposed to carrying the public along.

“So, the Nigerian security forces should foster stronger relationships with, particularly, the local leaders in areas where they operate.

“Then the issue of interagency collaboration should be consolidated and be made more robust.

“It is interesting that there are less and less clashes among the agencies. We believe and we wish that in the years ahead, such will be upheld, and clashes among agencies will be a thing of the past.

“So, the agencies can continue to share intelligence, they can continue to collaborate, and they reduce the level of duplication that leads to the rivalry that tends to affect operations and possibly cause some crisis, both in terms of the conduct of their mission or in terms of communicating their achievements,” he added.

Olukolade also urged the Nigerian security force to leverage on cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and all other innovations and development in technology to enhance intelligence gathering.

He added that security forces should continue to build on and improve on what they had, both in terms of logistics base and content, as well as training of personnel.

He said that the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) had made impressive progress in defence production. (NAN)

Edited by Christiana Fadare