Vigilante group inaugurates tactical squad of 4 million personnel
Story from Abah ADAH, Abuja
The Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN) on Tuesday in Abuja inaugurated its Special Tactical Squad of over four (4) million vigilantes.
Explaining the concept, the National Public Relations Officer (PRO), VGN, Mr Philip Amanyi, said the training and launch of the special squad was to strengthen the organisation in assisting the regular security agencies in combating the rising wave of terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping in the country.
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According to Amanyi, members of the squad were carefully selected from the database of over 35 million operatives of VGN across Nigeria.
He said the training started a year ago and they were invited to camp for the training in four batches, and upon concluding the training for the last batch from 26 March to 29 March 2022, all members of the previous sets were invited for the inauguration of the Special Tactical Squad of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria.
“To prepare them for the daunting security task they are meant to carry out, we trained them on how to gather intelligence and work to complement the effort of the formal security agencies in tackling insecurity in the country, so we gave them the best of training in collaboration with the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Department of Security Service (DSS). They came from time to time to train them.
“We are all aware that with the insurgency ravaging the country; there is no way the formal security outfits would succeed in surmounting the insecurity challenges without the aid of the VGN, so these people have been trained specifically on how to deal with acts of terrorism – Boko Haram activities, kidnapping, and banditry, etc.
“Today, a deputy commander-general will be appointed to head the tactical squad department which is aimed primarily at strengthening the operations of VGN and the operations of the formal security services,” he said.
He noted that testimonies of the relevance of VGN abound already as there is no state or local government area or community in Nigeria where one will not see men of the VGN.
“We are always on ground and are always the first port of call in the event of any insurgency, banditry, among others. So our duty is to assist and support the formal security agencies in winning the war against terrorism and the like. These ones have been trained to join hand with the Nigerian Army in fighting insurgency, so they were trained also on the use of arms for this purpose, trained on intelligence gathering, and on how to associate with the formal security operatives,” he explained further.
He said legislation to establish our organisation had already made commendable progress, adding that it had been passed by the National Assembly, and is with the executive current, “and I believe President Muhammed Buhari will do well to sign it before he leaves office”.
On recruitment of members, the PRO said, applicants, are made to go through training in various aspects after which they would write an examination to be considered if they pass it, adding that before final approval, the organisation does some background checks to know the person to the root and ensure he or she is not a criminal.
“For instance, there were cases where members of banditry or terror groups came to join the group; after our background check we discovered they belonged to some criminal group then and we handed them over to the formal security agencies,” he said.
He said in some states of the federation, their members had been licensed to use local arms to support and complement the activities of the NPF and the army, and they include the states of Nasarawa, Ogun, Oshun, and Katsina.
Speaking, the Commander, National Headquarters and Special Duties, Sola Sodiyan said, “What we are trying to do is make a special squad that can face the spate of insecurity in the country squarely. Just like in police, we have MOPOL, specially trained to face challenges the regular police cannot face, the same thing we are trying to apply in the VGN. There are special ways to approach crimes like banditry and kidnapping. So this tactical squad is another one of such that will be attending to Issues like that.
“There are certain things you need to consider before branding someone a bandit or terrorist, now they have been trained on all that including how to identify the criminal and how to quickly contact the regular security services when it requires more force to get the criminals in,” he said.
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