By Moses Okorie
Over 6000 officers of the Nigerian Forest Security Service (NFSS) from Kogi, Niger and the FCT are currently undergoing week-long intensive training to boast their physical and mental capabilities. The programme which started in Gwagwalada, Abuja, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 is expected to end on Monday, August 4, 2025 with a passing-out-parade.
Speaking to press after delivering his lecture, ACP Ebbah Alex who represented the FCT Police Commissioner said police is impressed with the cooperation from the NFSS while urging the federal government to incorporate the organization into the Nigerian security architecture through proper legislation.
He said, “The presence of the police here is a significant aura to let you know that there is collaboration and relationship between the police and the NFSS. The impression that police want to do security job alone is very wrong; there is no security agency that can do it all alone.
“We need even civilians to enable our success, because without information and intelligence, police can virtually do nothing, and with this collaboration we have more hands, more boots on the ground, more ears who will give us information and feedback. It is a win-win situation.
“The forest in this country today is an ungoverned space where some miscreants have taken advantage to ensure they perpetrate crimes; banditry, kidnapping and all that. Now that we have the NFSS with us, it is a very good arm that would assist the police in whatever we are doing. With that area being covered now, everybody can go to bed and sleep”.
ACP Ebbah expressed confidence that the NFSS will fit into the proposed forest guards’ roles the federal government is planning to establish. He called on the NFSS to keep hope alive and ensure they continue to do the right thing to make the leaders incorporate them.
On his assessment of the NFSS, he said, “I saw discipline, I saw enthusiasm, I saw desire, I saw love for this country”.
Also speaking, the FCT commander of the NFSS, Mr. Bawa Kyauta said it is a capacity training for their officers, because without training there is no way they can get it right.
“We are to ensure that our officers are been capacitated in order to work effectively with all other security agencies like the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the Department of State Service (DSS), including the military.
“We are in the frontline of the forestry, we are to ensure we known what to do legally. We know that when the forests are porous, every negative activity is carried out from there”, Kyauta said.