At the Razornews Security Summit, the Oluwo of Iwo and agency heads champion inter-agency collaboration and community-led solutions to tackle crime and terrorism.
A powerful call to formally integrate Nigeria’s traditional institutions into the national security architecture echoed at a high-level summit in Lagos on Tuesday.
His Imperial Majesty, the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Adewale Akanbi Telu I, chaired the Razornews Security Summit, themed “Institutional Collaboration as a Tool for Counter-Terrorism and Crime,” where he was hailed as a guiding light for community-based peacebuilding.
The summit brought together heads and senior officers from the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Army, Immigration, NSCDC, Customs, NDLEA, and the Correctional Service.
A unanimous resolution emerged: combating modern security threats requires breaking down silos between agencies and leveraging the grassroots intelligence of traditional rulers.
Oluwo of Iwo: Traditional Rulers Are the First Line of Defence
In his keynote address, Oba Adewale Akanbi asserted that traditional rulers are the indispensable first line of intelligence and conflict mediation.
He argued that security is fundamentally rooted in the community.
“We must separate crime from ethnicity and culture. A criminal is a criminal regardless of origin,” the monarch stated.
“Traditional rulers see the people every day… Give us the responsibility, and collaborate with us. Traditional authority must drive community-based security.”
He criticized fragmented inter-agency efforts that embolden criminals, stating, “No single agency can defeat terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and smuggling alone.”
Key Summit Recommendations & Policy Proposals
The summit concluded with a strong communiqué urging actionable steps:
Formalize Traditional Roles: Integrate traditional rulers as active partners in grassroots policing and early-warning systems, empowering them to identify and report criminal elements.
- Boost Inter-Agency Collaboration: Establish a central coordinating command for real-time joint decision-making between the military and police.
- Conditional Amnesty & Reintegration: Consider conditional amnesty for repentant bandits, paired with education and rehabilitation programs to address root causes like unemployment and drug abuse.
- Promote Community Policing: Police must deepen direct engagement with communities for timely intelligence, especially in remote hinterlands.
- Ensure Equitable Resource Use: Traditional leaders should ensure land and community resources are used equitably to discourage exploitation that fuels crime.
Stakeholders Rally Behind Collaborative Vision
The Oluwo’s vision received robust endorsement from top security stakeholders present:
- Rear Admiral O. A. Bankole (rtd), representing the Chief of Defence Staff, affirmed the armed forces’ readiness for deeper multi-agency integration.
- CP Olanrewaju Moshood Jimoh, representing the IGP, reiterated the police’s commitment to intelligence-driven operations and community collaboration.
The event culminated in award presentations to officers and citizens for outstanding contributions to national security, symbolizing the collective responsibility required to build a safer Nigeria.
As Nigeria grapples with complex security challenges, this summit highlights a pivotal shift in strategy—from a purely state-centric model to one that harnesses the enduring power of traditional leadership and community collaboration. The push for a structured
