By Ahmed Isa
The criticisms levelled against the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DG DSS), Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi, over his advocacy for community-based security is in synch with global best practice. A statement which he made during a security conference stating that ‘You do not expect the Nigerian Army, police, and SSS to protect every Nigerian’, reflects a deeper frustration with Nigeria’s persistent insecurity; however some fault-finders have misunderstood the pragmatic essence of his message and are making a joke of an eagled-eye call for action.
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Far from abdicating responsibility, Mr. Ajayi is pushing for a more inclusive, modern, and adaptive security paradigm and not jungle-justice type of security architecture.
It is unrealistic to expect that Nigeria’s security forces are stretched across the 36 states and over 774 local governments can single-handedly protect every citizen, every village, and at every road, at all times. The scale and flexibility of modern security threats, ranging from banditry to terrorism and cybercrime, require a broader, more grassroots approach. The DSS’s boss comment doesn’t signal despair but a genuine strategy that builds resilience from the locals.
The idea that communities should be involved in their own security is not a radical dereliction of duty—it is consistent with successful models around the world. For instance, countries like the United States of America still have Federal Security Agencies but have community based policing as complementary. So why won’t Nigeria have neighbourhood watches, local vigilante groups, and community-police partnerships that would work in villages, given that they have better knowledge of their terrain. What Mr. Ajayi is proposing, is not arming civilians with sticks, but equipping communities with the intelligence, awareness, coordination, and legal backing to play a proactive role. Even in instances where communities possess some level of amunitions, guidance, profiling and authorization are key.
Subjects in critisims are either totally ignorant of the proposed approach or are on hidden sinister vendetta against the Intelligence Service and are leveraging a simple patriotic alarm, to wrongly suggest that the DSS chief wants to offload the government’s constitutional duty. Forgetting to add that he also explicitly called for collaboration: for elites to engage their communities and partner with security agencies.
Lamenting the president’s foreign travels or comparing Mr. Ajayi’s initiative to an abandonment of duty is a baselesd distraction.
Strategic leadership requires vision, delegation, and reform. DSS is recognizing that if you wait until a threat reaches your door step, you’ve already failed. By empowering local communities, he’s advocating pre-emptive protection and not reactive policing.
Nigeria’s security problems long predate the APC and even democracy itself. While the party has not fulfilled all its promises, attributing every challenge to APC-era governance oversimplifies a complex issue. Insecurity is as much a product of global arms proliferation, regional instability, climate migration, and socio-economic despair as it is about political leadership.
Shutting down the DSS is not a solution—it is a provocation. In a time when citizens yearn for leadership, the worst anyone can propose dismantling one of the few institutions positioned to respond to emerging threats.
What’s needed is not destruction, but reform of the total security structure of the nation, investment, and more inclusive partnerships involving the locals. The DSS is, however, not waving a white flag but simply sounding an alarm and inviting Nigerians to be part of the answer.
Isa is an Internal Security Analyst and writes in from Abuja
