Insecurity: Using cab operators for intelligence gathering

Recently, my brother-in-law and his wife had to travel to the village for Christmas and had to bring their one-year-old son to my house at Wuse 11 in Abuja since it was compulsory for their maid to go with them. The said brother-in-law boarded a taxi with his elder brother. On getting to Banex junction, […]

Recently, my brother-in-law and his wife had to travel to the village for Christmas and had to bring their one-year-old son to my house at Wuse 11 in Abuja since it was compulsory for their maid to go with them. The said brother-in-law boarded a taxi with his elder brother. On getting to Banex junction, the taxi driver noticed that the child was sleeping without break, so he suspected a foul play. Subsequently, he parked the vehicle and raised the alarmed, which attracted the attention of surveillance policemen. In a jiffy he was told to identify himself and call the mother of the boy if the child was not kidnapped as alleged by the cab man.

Ignorantly, instead of providing the proof of paternity of the child by showing his son’s recent birthday family picture, including himself, the boy and the mother, my brother was trying to fight the driver for causing him public embarrassment. However, the timely intervention of my wife and mother-in-law prevented probable arrest by the police.

I commend the driver’s display of alertness, sincerity, smartness and absolute sense of patriotism. His action would have helped to rescue the child if he was kidnapped. There is a lesson here for the Nigeria Police Force. It means that some of the public cab drivers could be secretly enlisted and trained as intelligent agents to work for the state simultaneously to track crimes, especially kidnapping, armed robbery and fraud.

Also, commercial motorcyclists and tricycle drivers would be of immense help in most of our rural areas and villages. They could adequately provide intelligence reports and information to security personnel to deal with criminals on the prowl in all the nooks and crannies of the country. There is no straight jacket mode of gathering intelligence for security surveillance. Intelligence gathering network, according to Wikipedia, is a system through which information about a particular entity is collected for the benefit of another through the use of more than one inter-related sources.

The fact is that many Nigerians will be ready to assist the country in gathering intelligence and information to foil crimes.

Our security agencies need to re-strategise to be able to fight crimes effectively in the country.

Rotimi S. Bello wrote from Abuja

rotimibello­[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>