Recently, the Oyo State Commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Michael Akintayo Adaralewa was our celebrity guest on our popular radio show, Parrot Xtra Hour on Splash 105.5fm anchored by OLAYINKA AGBOOLA. The erudite NSCDC boss discussed many issues.
Excerpts:
We know a little bit about you…I am sure our listeners (readers) will like to know more about you sir…
I am Dr. Michael Akintayo Adaralewa, the Commandant of NSCDC of Oyo State Command; I attended primary school at Asegba Ekiti, Ekiti State and I proceeded to bag my Bachelor’s Degree in technical sciences from the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. Later on, I went to Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti for my Masters Degree. When I was searching for more knowledge, I had to also proceed to Atlantic International University in the US where I bagged my Doctorate Degree.
People always talk about police but I want you to explain to our dear listeners, the duties and responsibilities of NSCDC and in what areas it is in collaboration with the Nigeria Police?
Thank you very much, as you rightly pointed out in your intro, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps was established as a government paramilitary agency in the year 2003. Before then, NSCDC had been existing but we called it Lagos Civil Defence since 1967 during the civil war. They were saddled with the responsibility of taking care of the victims of the war and rehabilitating them and making sure that they received medical attention where necessary. But those eras were the eras of voluntary but the federal government having recognized their activities and saw the need that the work of police is too numerous and they needed more hands and more support, so it was there and then the Parliament now enacted the Act in the year 2003 to establish Nigeria Security and Civil Corps. By year 2007, it was also amended whereby to strengthen the existing responsibilities given to the NSCDC and also empowered them to be armed in combating the act of vandalism in our society, especially people fond of destroying public properties, or engaging in pipeline vandalisation and every other public utility. So there is no way we can effectively do this work without being armed because the vandals carry very sophisticated arms and most of the time they do attack our men and we were recording a lot of casualties. So, these are some of the responsibilities we carry out as at today and thank God we have been playing a complimentary role to what the Nigeria Police play and other security agencies particularly in Oyo State.
And this role you are talking about, a lot of people of course believe that once you are arrested by NSCDC officer, the arrest would not end in court you still have to refer to the police, please kindly elucidate more on this?
Thank you, you know as agency of government everybody has it strong call mandate, as police has its own, Civil Defence, we also have our own, as well as Immigration and other security agencies. We have the right to arrest, investigate and prosecute but where we have the main strength is the area of vandalization. Anyone that destroys or vandalises government property, we will arrest such person or group of persons; we will investigate them and prosecute them accordingly. Take them to court of law. We have the Intelligence Department that conducts investigation in any arrest we make and we have the Legal Department also that represents us in the court. We have secured many convictions on so many victims of vandalisation of pipelines and other critical national assets and infrastructure.
Now, elections have come and gone like I said in my intro, Oyo State happened to be one of the most peaceful before, during and after elections; I know you and your men did a lot but how were you actually able to achieve this?
Thank you very much. I am seizing this opportunity to thank and appreciate the good people of Oyo State for their cooperation before, during and after the elections. We had a very herculean task before us before the elections, we went out there with other security agencies as I told you, we have a lot of synergy and collaboration and we put out all our resources, logistics and we appealed and sensitized the good people of Oyo State on how to be law abiding particularly during the elections. We warned against any violence, any act of ballot snatching. We thank our people for cooperating.
As the Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Oyo State, what and what can you point to as your achievements so far sir?
There are so many things to talk about in that regards even when we begin to list one after the other it is going to take a lot of time but I will mention one or two. When I resumed duty in Oyo State, the Commandant General in Abuja gave us the mandate to establish the Female Arms Squad which is the first of its kind. So, I established this and called on the trainers from our Training Department to train our active female corps on how to hold and handle the ammunitions among other techniques to combat criminals in our society. The training took about three or four months before they graduated (POP). Having gone through that, we called on the good people of the state because we will needed some equipment and operational vehicles to be able to move around, some important personalities stood up and assisted us and gave us operational vehicles and we branded them NSCDC Oyo State Female Arms Squad. The squad was set up to combat incessant attacks on educational institutions in the state under the programme we called “Safe School Initiative”, it covers primary school, secondary school up to tertiary institutions. This Female Arms Squad patrols schools to ensure that activities within schools throughout Oyo State are going smoothly, in fact the state Ministry of Education has almost taken all of them from us in order to help them in dealing with cases of cultism, kidnapping and all sorts of crises in schools. Since I resumed, I also ensured that training and retraining of our officers increased more than before, because the Commandant General in Abuja believes so much in trainings. I ensure that there is training and retraining of our men and officers virtually every month for all cadres that are in NSCDC in Oyo State to ensure that they effectively and efficiently discharge their duties to ensure peace continues to reign in the state.
Do you post your officers as security guards, body guards to ‘men of power’?
No, we don’t send our officers to do the private guard jobs. In fact, one of our responsibilities is to license, to monitor and to train the private security companies. While we are doing that, we can not as well send our men to probably the supermarket, shopping malls to go and do security guard job, no, it is the work of private security companies. So, we do not send our men to do security guard job to politicians or rich men.
I have read some stories indicting some security operatives including NSCDC as working with petrol smugglers because you know Oyo State has international borders, so, what are you doing to ensure that your men do not really get involved in illegalities?
As I early told you, the one secret thing about Oyo NSCDC is training, when we train our men and officers, we tell them the rules and regulations of the job, we tell them which one is legal and which one is illegal. In Oyo State, I can proudly say that none of my officers has been found wanting in the area of collaboration with vandals or smugglers, they can not do that because they know the implications and the kind of system we are running. The moment you are caught in the act of sabotage, you will be made to face the law and the Commandant General at the seat of power now is a no-nonsense person, he doesn’t condole all these acts. So, I can boldly say that none of my officers in Oyo State Command can be found wanting in this area, they do their work professionally; they are dutiful and law abiding.
Would you want to discuss some of the challenges you have been having while running your Command?
Thank you, like all agencies – not even security agencies alone, all agencies in the country even the private sector, we all have challenges and one of them which is very familiar and common is lack of adequate funding, adequate logistics and inadequate manpower. These have been major challenges not peculiar to NSCDC alone.
How will describe your relationship with the present administration in Oyo State being led by Engineer ‘Seyi Makinde?
Very fantastic, he has been our father, our supporter, we lean on him many times and he has always been positively responding to our calls anytime we call upon him. He told us expressly – all the security agencies that his doors are always open 24-hours that we should call him anytime and that he is ready to accede to our proposals.
What we used to hear in the news is what the governor has done for the police, can you mention one or two things that governor has done to assist you in your command?
As we speak, the governor has promised to give us operational vehicles. He is doing one after the other; he has done for the police, next is the Civil Defence and followed by other security agencies. So, in no distance time we will inform you when governor gives us our own.
What is the relationship between the NSCDC and other security agencies in particular Oyo State Security Network (Amotekun)…?
Thank you Mr Presenter, Oyo State is a peculiar state; the peculiarity I am talking about is that in the whole of Nigeria there is no state that its security agencies share intelligence like Oyo State, the collaboration among security agencies is awesome. The way they react to intelligence calls in terms of deploying of personnel to arrest dire situations and that is why peace is reigning in Oyo State. So, there is cordial relationship between NSCDC and Amotekun.
Some of us believe Fulani herdsmen palaver is reducing, what role has your Command been playing?
Thank you, we have a department called Agro-Rangers, it was specifically created to deal with the issue of herders and farmers’ clashes. They had their special training to the essence that first of all they engage these herders and farmers in amicable resolution of issues – we call this approach, Alternative Dispute Resolution but at the end of the day, when such approach is not yielding fruitful result, if they decided to now embark on violence, we know how to pacify them to calm them down. Most of the times that Alternative Dispute Resolution has been working well and that is why we are having very little or no cases of herders and farmers’ clashes in Oyo State.
Sir, in terms of efficient intelligence gathering, what do you think your Command has been doing concerning this and your men, will you say that they are up to date?
Our Intelligence and Investigation Department particularly in Oyo State is one of the best you can find around, if you go around, to motor parks, to markets even to the places of worship, we are not there to only protect them, we are also there to listen and gather information, to gather intelligence, and the good people of Oyo State have also been helping us in this area by giving us useful information that has been helping us nip some intending criminal perpetrators in the bud.
Does NSCDC have equivalent of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) like in the police?
We don’t have Criminal Investigation Department, it is our Intelligence and Investigation Department doing that but we have not tagged them as CID, both criminal and civil cases are being investigated in that department.
I read somewhere you were reading the riot act to people who deal in pangolin and other endangered animals. How far with this assignment?
Well, it was a paper delivered during Pangolin Day, all over the world the government of countries that recognize importance of pangolin try to protect and to preserve them because of their medicinal value and other usages, even in Nigeria we try as much as possible to preserve pangolin so that it doesn’t go into extinction because it is not as common as other animals.
What about human traffickers or it is not part of your duties?
We also have a department called Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, in fact Ministry of Women and Affairs and Social Inclusion many times has commended us and even given us awards on this, because we really take this seriously. The Unit is doing wonderfully well; we have handled cases that are more than 2,000 even since the middle of last year till this March, because virtually every day we arrest people that engage in raping of minors, those that are engaged in human trafficking, as well as child labour, domestic violence inclusive. So, we are working in conjunction with the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Inclusion and they have been so supportive and always commend that Unit in our agency.
Is Oyo State notorious when we talk about cases of rape and child labour?
Well, rape is so rampant in Oyo State and it is worrisome but I wouldn’t say that it is more than any other states in Nigeria because I have not done comparative analysis -but I will say that it is a bit high in Oyo State and we are really dealing with that and child labour also, these are cases that are really prevalent in our society.
If I want to join the NSCDC today what are the things I am supposed to do and what are the qualifications required?
First of all, just like any civil service in Nigeria before you can be qualified to apply for Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps job, you have to be a Nigerian and above 18 years. If that one is established you mustn’t be an ex-convict and you must not have any criminal record, if you have established that, any qualification you have ranging from school certificate to any degree, you will fit into the cadre your qualification is commensurate with…
Anti corruption battle in Nigeria…is your Command really involved?
Yes, we have anti-corruption unit also in our agency and they are really doing their job also, they deal with land sales, land grabbers, taking money with false pretense, so many numerous cases like all these coming in everyday that we handle, we prosecute even in conjunction with EFCC.
What pieces of advice do you have for your men and officers?
First of all I want to thank my officers and men for being good ambassadors of the Corps, they displayed professionalism and dedication during the last general elections and every other assignments being given to them, I salute them and I want to encourage them to continue in that spirit so that we will be in the heart of the people. Because as you know, we are the closet agency to the civil populace, we live among them, we wine with them and that is why we are able to do our work with full civility, with integrity and high humility in service delivery that has been our watchword. Please, I encourage them to keep the good job going.
What is your word of advice for the people of Oyo State?
Thank you very much, my good people of Oyo State once again, I want to thank you for your support all the time, and now that elections have come and gone, please, let us go back to our traditional security architectures, meaning that you have to be watchful, you have to be careful, you have to know your neighbours, you have to always be conscious any time, if you see something, say something. Any where you are, always be conscious and don’t forget to always avail us with timely information, timely intelligence so that we are there to serve, it is when you give us information so that we will be able to serve you and if you see anything that you are not comfortable with please feel free to contact us. I told you that gone are those days that identity of informants are not protected, this time around, I can assure that if you give any information your identity is well protected and will not be used against you.
