The Federal Government has disclosed plans to amend the Act setting up the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to enable it to achieve its core mandate of protecting critical national infrastructure.
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, made this known on Tuesday when he declared open a Stakeholders’ Summit on the Protection of Critical Infrastructure in Nigeria, organised by the NSCDC.
Aregbesola stated that effort was being made to further support and strengthen the Corps, to meet the responsibility of protecting critical national assets and infrastructure.
Represented by the permanent secretary in the ministry, Dr Shuaib Belgore, the minister noted that the threats to Nigeria’s national assets and infrastructure have continued to escalate due to insecurity in the country.
He, however, expressed hope that the summit would provide an opportunity for participants to review the current security situation in the country, examine the level of risk to critical assets and infrastructure, and find ways of working together to safeguarding them.
On his part, the Commandant General of NSCDC, Dr Ahmed Abubakar Audi, explained that the theme for the summit which is “Synergy: Panacea To Effective Critical Assets and Infrastructure Protection”, was carefully chosen because of the dangers posed to Nigeria’s critical assets due to the prevailing security situation and the need to restrategise to find a lasting solution to the menace.
Audi noted that the frequency of crime and the level of insecurity has exposed Nigeria’s infrastructure/assets to dangers of attacks by criminal elements and saboteurs.
He said the summit has come at a time when there is a sudden upsurge in crime and threats to national security occasioned by the criminal activities of terrorists/insurgents, vandals and oil thieves, bandits, kidnappers, ethnic militias, border clashes/boundary disputes, among others.
