President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed that those taking laws into their hands, bearing arms illegally and seeking to profit from a climate of fear and insecurity would be decisively dealt with.
The Nigerian leader spoke in Wudil, Kano, at the Passing-Out-Parade of the Cadets of the fourth Regular Course of the Nigeria Police Academy.
According to him, his administration would continue to demonstrate zero tolerance for crime and criminality, charging the police to rise to the occasion.
He stressed the need to develop a policy on cyber warfare with strategic focus on the prevention of cyber-attacks against critical national infrastructure, minimising national vulnerability to cyber-attacks and minimising damage and recovery time from cyber-attacks.
“Today’s landscape extends well beyond the land, sea, and air, into the vast territories of cyberspace. The internet and new digital technologies have provided a platform for the emerging offences to reach unprecedented levels,” he said.
“Many of the enemies you’ll confront will be permanently faceless or concealed, leveraging technology to wage warfare that has the potential to be even more destructive than anything the world has ever known.
“The Boko Haram insurgency, the Independent People of Biafra, the Eastern Security Network and banditry in some parts of the country over time, which posed a potent threat to the country, have been significantly degraded and relative normalcy has returned to most towns and villages and more efforts are in place to ensure that normalcy returns all the areas suffering banditry.
“Across the North Central and North West of the country, we’ve made progress with regards to stemming the tide of communal violence, farmers-herdsmen clashes, cattle rustling and kidnapping,” he said.
The Commandant of the Academy, AIG AbdurRahman Ahmad, said the institution had boosted the Nigeria Police Force and the security workforce of the nation with 1,748 officers in addition to the 205 that just passed out via presidential commissioning.