Security agencies on Thursday (today) explained the heavy deployment of personnel and barricades across parts of Abuja’s city centre, saying the measures were routine and aimed at maintaining law and order.
The agencies assured residents and visitors that there was no security threat warranting panic.
CityNews understands that the barricades, mounted at strategic locations in recent days, have caused gridlock and delays for motorists, civil servants and other workers moving to and from offices in the Federal Capital Territory.
‘No Cause For Alarm’
Speaking during a joint media briefing by security and intelligence agencies, the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Anietie Iniedu, said the deployment was a joint operation.
“It is a joint operation. There is no cause for alarm at the moment,” Iniedu said.
He explained that security agencies had noticed an increase in protests within the city centre and had intensified deployment to ensure public safety.
“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 spokesman said the heightened security presence was necessary because Abuja is Nigeria’s capital and hosts 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 said the Nigeria Police Force had expanded its security approach beyond intelligence-led policing to what he described as “intelligence-led community collaborative policing.”
“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, Kingsley Amako of the National Coordination Office of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit said security agencies were strengthening intelligence gathering and financial surveillance to combat 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 noted that although some security operations could not be disclosed publicly, agencies were working together to counter emerging threats.
Amako urged the media to engage security institutions whenever clarification was needed, rather than relying on speculation.
