Palestinian medics carry a man injured in Gaza City’s Shijaiyah neighborhood that came under fire as Israel widened its ground offensive against Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, yesterday. Tens of people were killed in Shijaiyah and many more bodies were believed buried under the rubble of homes, health officials said. They are the latest casualties in a nearly two-week conflict that has killed some 380 Palestinians and seven Israelis. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

A rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, (Intersociety), yesterday, said the Nigerian security forces, as presently constituted, lacks the capacity to fight insurgency because of the country’s weak policy on security.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees of the group, Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi said this while briefing journalists in Onitsha during a ceremony to mark the release of the group’s letters to Pope Francis, Nigerian Christian leaders, International Criminal Court and President Goodluck Jonathan.
Umeagbalasi said part of the reason the security agencies in Nigeria would not be able to fight terrorism was because the country’s national policy on security had remained outdated.
He said the policy was last updated in 1979, and that with such development, it would be difficult for security agencies to work effectively.
He also said that while the terror groups in Nigeria were employing first class brains from the best universities in relevant courses, the Nigerian security operatives were mostly officers, who were born before the computer age, and who had also refused to update their skills to suit modern crime fighting techniques.
“The National Policy on Security was last updated in 1979, during the Obasanjo military era, that is 35 years ago. How can such an archaic policy be used to fight crime in a modern age like this?
“That is why most of the police personnel are BBC (Born Before Computer) officers. The ordinary Nigeria police officer is a typewriter age security officer and cannot detonate a bomb that is powered by modern ICT devices.
“While the Boko Haram is employing graduates of Chemistry, Physics and other related courses, the country is employing illiterate police officers to fight crime. Go and read the profile of Oguche, the mastermind of the Nyanya bomb blast and you will know the kind of people Boko Haram is employing”, Umegbalasi said.
The group while calling on Christian leaders in Nigeria and religious organizations like the Roman Catholic and the Anglican Communion to lend their voices, said that the plans of the various terrorist groups in Nigeria is to wipe away Christians from the country.
They stated that the United Nations has been very skeletal in their concern about happenings in Nigeria, despising the fate of about 170million people, and taking greater interest in Sudan of just 30 million population.
In a letter to Pope Francis, the group stated that the timely intervention of the Papacy will save Nigerian Christians from being wiped off, adding that the killing of Christians and burning down of churches by the terrorist groups signpost their desire to annihilate the Christian race.
It revealed that the country was not only dealing with the Boko Haram, but another very deadly terror group known as the Fulani Jihadist, which many have always mistaken for mere Fulani herdsmen, but which has also killed several people in the North Central zone of the country.
“We are not calling on Christians to carry arms, but there are several safeguard mechanisms that can be applied. The federal government should also own up to the fact that our security agencies are a monumental failure, and move to strengthen it”, he noted.
The group said that in 2014 alone, at least 4,118 innocent citizens, who are mostly Christians of Igbo and Northern Nigeria minority extraction, have been killed, making it the bloodiest year since 1999.