The inspector-general of police, IGP Olatunji Rilwan Disu has called for unified West African front against transnational crime.
The IGP stated this at the 11th meeting of heads of INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) for West Africa.
The gathering brought together NCB heads from 16 West African nations alongside senior representatives of the INTERPOL General Secretariat and regional security bodies.
In his address, IGP Disu painted a candid picture of the threat environment confronting the West African sub-region.
According to him, “Human trafficking syndicates, arms dealers, drug networks, cyber fraudsters, money launderers, terrorist financiers, and violent extremist groups all share one defining characteristic: they operate without regard for national borders.”
The IGP was emphatic that the region’s success depends not on any single country’s efforts, but on the speed and quality of partnerships forged across all 16-member states.
On Nigeria’s part, IGP Disu spoke to concrete steps already underway — extending INTERPOL’s I-24/7 secure communications network to border control points and law enforcement institutions nationwide, so that the officer at a land crossing has the same real-time access to critical intelligence as those at headquarters.
He reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to Project GEMINI — the systematic uploading and verification of INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database — and pointed to the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) as evidence of what regional data integration, pursued with purpose, can achieve.
Force PRO DCP Anthony Okon Placid said the leader of the INTERPOL delegation acknowledged Nigeria’s investment in hosting and drew attention to what the full attendance of all 16 NCB heads signified — that across distances and operational pressures, these agencies had chosen to show up together.
He challenged participants to leave not with intentions, but with commitments capable of being measured, and to carry into their daily operations a shift from reacting to crime after the fact, to anticipating and disrupting it before harm is done.
The 11th NCB heads meeting reaffirms Nigeria’s place at the centre of West African security cooperation and reflects a Force leadership that understands policing in the twenty-first century as an inherently collective endeavour.
