UNODC Urges Security Agencies’ Synergy

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called for synergy among law enforcement agencies to combat organised crimes in the country.
The UNODC outgoing Country Representative, Ms Cristina Albertin,  made the call when she appeared as a guest at newsmen in Abuja.
The Tide reports that UNODC deals in organised crimes like drug, child and human trafficking, smuggling of fire arms, economic crimes, money laundering, corruption and terrorism based  on UN conventions and protocols.
Albertin  said  national agencies like the police, Nigeria Immigration Service, NAPTIP, Nigeria Customs Service and  NDLEA must work together to tackle organised crimes.
“The big limitation we observed in this country is that national law agencies are not working together as they should;  each agency can’t work in isolation.
“In human trafficking for instance, the different agencies charged with responsibilities like immigration, police and  judges must work together.
“There must be cooperation between investigators, prosecutors and judges.
“They must work together and ensure they are on the same page, “ she said.
She said since the creation of UNODC office in Nigeria in 1997, it had  created  a platform to discuss with major stakeholders on challenges of each of the professionals with a view to addressing them.
The outgoing country representative urged all law enforcement agencies in the country to improve in coordination and cooperation to tackle all organised crimes in the country.
Albertin  pledged that her organisation would continue to offer technical capacity building to major stakeholders to deal with  organised crimes within its  mandate as stipulated in UN conventions.
She noted that capacity building for all the major players was germane as  many of them claim  not to be  familiar with UN conventions  and  national laws on organised crimes.
“The officers and men of these agencies need training and we have to also realise that one crime does not come alone and each organised crime like money laundering involves  another crime.
“It is difficult these days for a crime to be perpetuated without the use of internet; and that is cyber crime and with all this, things become much more complex.