The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has called on West African police chiefs to collaborate and devise innovative ways to tackle emerging complex security challenges facing the ECOWAS bloc.
Egbetokun made this known at a meeting of the West African Police Chiefs Committee (WAPCCO) technical sub-committee on training and operations in Abuja.
He said that the West African subregion had in recent times been confronted with complex national security challenges, which had been accentuating transnational crimes.
“The activities of these cybercriminals has imposed on us all the additional burden of developing our national security capacity to dominate cyberspace and deny criminals the liberty to operate in our overriding national and regional security interests.
“The differences in legal frameworks and legislative systems continue to hinder effective law enforcement operations and criminal justice delivery initiatives among member states.
“Our security reality continually deepens the need to commit to regional collaboration, towards dissecting the pattern and trend of crimes on the one hand, and towards pulling together and supporting each other in bridging our national security gaps,” he said.
According to him, these challenges have been posing significant threats to the national security order of member states, as well as regional peace and socioeconomic profile.
Egbetokun enumerated such crimes to include traditional crimes of stealing, cross border robberies, human goods, drugs trafficking, small arms and light weapons smuggling, banditry, terrorism, as well as other non-state actors.
He further said that cybercrime and cyber-enabled crimes were now emerging as bigger challenges to the subregion’s security.
The I-G said that a critical hindrance to effective regional law enforcement operations and criminal justice delivery initiatives was the differences in legal frameworks and legislative systems among member states.
