President Bola Tinubu has declared a national security emergency and launched a major overhaul of Nigeria’s security framework, ordering large-scale recruitment into the armed forces and police and unveiling a set of emergency measures to confront kidnappings, banditry and forest-based terrorism.
The President authorised an urgent expansion of security personnel and revealed plans to use National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camps as temporary police training depots to speed up intake and deployment. He directed that officers currently on VIP protection be crash-retrained and redeployed to frontline duties in high-risk communities.
In an effort to bolster presence in vulnerable areas, Mr. Tinubu said the federal government would press ahead with accelerated recruitment into the police and military and expedite training so newly enlisted personnel can be posted quickly to understaffed divisions.
The President ordered the Department of State Services to deploy all trained forest guards and recruit additional personnel to flush terrorists and criminal gangs from forested hideouts nationwide. Federal support, he added, will be extended to state-level security outfits as required.
Mr. Tinubu commended the security agencies for recent rescue operations, citing the liberation of 24 schoolgirls in Kebbi State and the release of dozens of worshippers seized in Kwara State, and vowed continued efforts to free any remaining hostages.
He urged the National Assembly to consider legal changes that would allow interested states to establish their own police units, and called on states to reassess boarding in remote schools and for religious centres to seek permanent security protection.
On communal violence, Mr. Tinubu reiterated the administration’s plan to tackle farmer-herder clashes through the new Ministry of Livestock, encouraging herders to adopt ranching, end open grazing and surrender illegal arms.
Paying tribute to fallen service members including Brigadier-General Musa Uba, the President sympathised with bereaved families and warned criminal elements that the government’s restraint should not be misread as weakness. He closed by calling for national unity and cooperation with security agencies, saying: “we are in this fight together, and together we shall win.”