Insecurity: PRP urges Fed Govt to integrate communities into security architecture

The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has tasked the Federal Government to immediately mobilise, organise, empower and fully integrate local communities into the security architecture, insisting that grassroots human intelligence remains the most potent tool for tracking the movements, networks, and supply lines of terrorists and bandits across the country.

The party also demanded an immediate end to all negotiations or engagements, formal or informal, between the Federal Government and any terror-linked individuals or groups, warning that such contacts dangerously undermine the authority of the state.

In a statement on Tuesday by its National Chairman, Falalu Bello, the party said Nigeria’s worsening security crisis has reached a level where community-based intelligence and participation are no longer optional but central to restoring stability and regaining control of the country’s internal security space.

“The communities possess vital human intelligence that the security agencies desperately need,” the PRP declared, warning that without a structured and empowered grassroots security framework, government forces will continue to operate at a disadvantage against increasingly sophisticated terror cells.

The appeal formed part of the party’s broader reaction to what it described as Nigeria’s “rapid descent into chaos,” following a spate of coordinated attacks, mass abductions, and targeted killings across several states in recent days.

On the call for an immediate end to all negotiations or engagements between the government and any terror-linked individuals or groups, the opposition party said the government must “take full responsibility” for all national security operations and stop actions that elevate non-state actors into “stakeholders” in the country’s security process. 

It stressed that any private or unofficial negotiation only emboldens criminal elements and deepens Nigeria’s security crisis.

The PRP listed the abduction of more than 315 students and teachers from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State; the kidnapping of 25 schoolgirls in Kebbi; the killing of police personnel and vigilantes in Kwara and Bauchi; the murder of eight Civilian Joint Task Force members in Gwoza, Borno; and the killing of a policeman in Geidam, Yobe. 

Four rice farmers were also murdered in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State.

It warned that the killing of senior security officers, including Brigadier General M. Uba, alongside the spread of terror infrastructure beyond Sambisa Forest, shows a dangerous erosion of state authority, saying “Nigeria is steadily losing control of its internal security architecture”.

The PRP accused government officials of offering “empty assurances, superficial reforms, and political theatrics” while communities suffer violent attacks and displacement. 

It described the situation as a “national emergency” marked by a collapse of intelligence coordination, operational capacity, and political will.

While acknowledging the reported release of some abducted worshippers in Eruku, Kwara State, the party said the deaths recorded in the attack and the trauma inflicted underscore the vulnerability of even religious sanctuaries. 

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“This is not governance; it is a catastrophic dereliction of duty,” it stated.