The fight against insecurity in Nigeria needs advanced, high-level attack drones to be successful, a spokesperson for the President has said.
The special adviser, Daniel Bwala, made the comments during an interview with Mary-Ann Okon on the Hard Facts show on Nigeria Info 99.3FM Lagos.
Bwala explained that simple intelligence-gathering drones are not enough to defeat terrorist groups like Boko Haram and bandits. He stressed that these criminal groups are constantly moving and do not stay in one fixed location.
“By the time you say, okay, we are preparing to send people for operation, and you go there, they are not there,” Bwala said, describing the challenge faced by security forces. He said the delay between finding the criminals and sending soldiers allows the enemy to escape.
To fix this problem, Bwala argued that a drone system that can also attack is urgently needed. This technology would have the power to “eliminate the target immediately” once it has identified them.
The spokesperson also gave a brief history of the insecurity challenge. He noted that the problem started with Boko Haram during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It then grew larger, spreading its operations under the Muhammadu Buhari government.
The entire issue, Bwala noted, has now “evolved over three administrations”. He focused on giving citizens a clear picture, pushing back against what he called “mixed messaging, and sometimes outright misinformation” on the state of national security.
