TheCable

Ahmed Audi, commandant-general of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), says persons involved in banditry and similar criminal activities receive sponsorship from international circles.

He stated this on Wednesday during a training for state commandants of the agency in Abuja.

According to Audi, the country is experiencing “asymmetric war”, which requires inter-agency collaboration among security outfits.

“These guys are serious. These guys have international sponsors, so we need to come together. So, I’d like to say that this workshop is very apt and germane and very central to the collaboration of Nigerian security agencies,” he said.

“The increasing rate of armed conflict, occasioned by armed banditry, kidnapping, farmer-herder crises, vandalisation, community clashes, ethno-religious crises, among others, makes it imperative to explore the opportunity provided by this workshop in addressing and finding solutions to it.

“To this end, the need for multi-agency approach through effective collaboration and synergy cannot be overemphasised, neither can it be underestimated.

“Following how events are unfolding in the country, we are experiencing a serious conflict that I think in the history of Nigeria, this is about the first conflict that will give us a serious problem and the conflict is called asymmetric war.

“We have had in the past some semblance of this type of war, but the proper manifestation of it is the one we are seeing now, and asymmetric war is a war that requires all hands to be on deck if we want to deal with it and nip it in the bud.”

In recent times, the country has witnessed a rise in the activities of bandits, especially with the mass abduction of schoolchildren in the northern part of the country.