Security agencies on Thursday clarified the reasons for the increased deployment of personnel and the erection of barricades across parts of Abuja’s city centre.
They reassured residents and visitors that the actions were routine measures aimed at preserving law and order amid a rise in protests within the Federal Capital Territory.
The barricades, set up at key points in the city in recent days, have resulted in traffic congestion and delays for thousands of motorists, civil servants and other workers commuting to and from their workplaces.
Addressing public concerns during a joint media briefing involving security and intelligence agencies, Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Anietie Iniedu, assured residents that there was no security threat requiring panic.
“It is a joint operation. There is no cause for alarm at the moment,” Iniedu said.
He explained that security agencies had recorded an increase in protests in the city centre and had strengthened deployments to maintain public order and ensure the safety of residents.
“We’ve noticed that there has been an upsurge of protests in the city centre, and we’re trying to maintain law and order as is our basic and primary responsibility. The deployments are basically deployments with movement from one location to the other to ensure that our city centre is safe,” he said.
The police spokesperson noted that the heightened security presence was necessary because Abuja is the nation’s capital and accommodates diplomatic missions, government institutions and foreign investors.
“Remember, we’re in the capital, and there’s a lot that has to be done to ensure confidence in those in the city centre and also for our foreign investors,” he added.
Iniedu further disclosed that the Nigeria Police Force had moved beyond intelligence-led policing to an approach he described as “intelligence-led community collaborative policing.”
According to him, the strategy acknowledges that intelligence gathering alone is not enough to address emerging security challenges and therefore relies more on cooperation with local communities.
“We’ve seen that intelligence alone won’t help us. We have gone far to create collaborative processes with our communities,” he said.
Also speaking at the briefing, Kingsley Amako of the National Coordination Office of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit said security agencies had intensified intelligence gathering and financial monitoring to tackle terrorism financing.
“We have very robust intelligence-gathering mechanisms. As they are evolving into new tricks and changing their tactics, we are also evolving with them,” Amako said.
He added that although certain security operations could not be discussed publicly, agencies were working together to address changing threats and encouraged the media to seek clarification from security institutions when necessary.