President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has restated his administration’s commitment to the welfare of members of the Armed Forces and intelligence agencies.
He expressed optimism that Nigeria will prevail over the myriads of security challenges facing it.
Speaking yesterday at the inauguration of the Headquarters of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the president promised to kit the outfits with other administrative and logistics requirements to enhance their productivity.
President Tinubu, who was represented by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio, said: “I assure you along with the entire armed forces of Nigeria that I will sustain the provision of the welfare, training and other administrative and logistics requirements to enhance your productivity and to enable you to carry out your mandate.
“I am persuaded that a conducive and well-equipped intelligence outfit would positively impact on the overall intelligence-gathering effort, processing and timely dissemination to various arms of the military”.
Commending the present and future leadership of the DIA for seeing to the completion of the project, he said: “Let me at this juncture, commend the leadership of the DIA past and present for conceiving and completing this beautiful edifice.
“It is my sincere belief that out of this magnificent office structure shall emerge innovations and creativity in the field of intelligence gathering that would keep Nigeria ahead of its foes and make our country and people safer.
“Since I assumed the leadership of our great nation a year ago, I have made the task of securing every inch of our country a topmost priority. I have no intention of relenting on this sacred duty.
“I am thus delighted to be here today to inaugurate the headquarters of the DIA; a key agency in our security architecture that primarily provides intelligence to our armed forces and Ministry of Defence.
“Our country is bedevilled by myriads of security challenges across the six geo-political zones. We are not only faced by physical threats, but also economic and digital threats. In terms of digital threats, we are all aware of the capacity of criminals, terrorists and cyber bandits to exploit advances in technologies to undermine any nation including our own.
“This is why security tops the eight-point agenda of our administration. In our bid to combat physical threats, we deploy our armed forces in all the 36 states of the federation to assist the civil authorities”.
The president added: “You have to contend with behind your computers, using if necessary, AI (Artificial Intelligence), which enables our military to know the position of our enemies or the games they are up to and of course, you will do that in secret.
“I know that with each passing day, the adversaries wish that our commitment in responding to various threats would wane, our optimism dims and our courage evaporates.
“Our adversaries got our DNA wrong. The underlying spirit of Nigerians cannot and will never yield to the forces of darkness. You have all left me in no doubt that you have no other higher obligations than to serve this nation of ours, he declared.
We shall prevail against insecurity
The president anchored his confidence of imminent triumph over security challenges on the unwavering commitment of members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria and the intelligence agencies, including the DSS (Department of State Service), NIA (National Intelligence Agency) and of course the DIA.
“You have all led me in no doubt that you have no other higher obligation than to serve and secure this nation of ours”, he said.
The president said he had made the task of securing every inch of the country a priority, adding that he had no intention to fail on the sacred duty.
He identified the DIA as a key agency in the security architecture offering intelligence to the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence.
The Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), Maj.-Gen. Emmanuel Undiandeye said the agency had since its establishment, diligently carried out its assigned responsibilities of intelligence gathering and provisioning of timely and appropriate actions for the military and strategic national decision-making.
Gen. Undiandeye identified the place of intelligence as a critical tool of statecraft that provided the necessary foreknowledge to protect the nation from surprise attacks, either through hostile foreign military or internal challenges.
