The annual event, organized by Emergency Digest—a publication of Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR)—in collaboration with the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC), is designed to recognize outstanding gallantry, patriotism, and contributions to Nigeria’s safety and security.

The event, themed “Drug Control and National Security: Innovations for a Safer Tomorrow,” will take place at the NDLEA Headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, at 10 a.m.

The SAEMA 2025 ceremony will feature the presentation of awards across multiple categories, including those for security service, law enforcement, community service, crime prevention, public information management, due diligence and civil-military relations.

The Publisher of PRNigeria and other titles, Mallam Yushau A. Shuaib, also announced that the event will feature the public presentation of a book titled: “Anti-Drug, Anti-Smuggling Campaigns—Youth Corper’s Chronicle,” which was co-authored by two youth corps members, Arafat Abdulrazaq and Tahir Ahmed serving at the PRNigeria Centre.

By PRNigeria

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As the world increasingly leverages cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping lives and businesses, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, has reiterated the need to explore and use AI in bolstering productivity in critical sectors of the Nation’s economy.

Inuwa made this known while delivering a Keynote Address on “Artificial Intelligence: Effective Communication for National Security” at the 2023 fifth Security and Emergency Management Awards (SAEMA) and third Spokespersons’ Communication Awards (SCA) organised by Emergency Digest and Spokespersons’ Digest, subsidiaries of Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR), Abuja.

Alluding to the fact that Artificial Intelligence is already changing daily lives, almost entirely in ways that improve human health, safety, and productivity, Inuwa averred that AI is beyond a tool, as it is a new way of building a relationship between humans and machines.

“In building that relationship, we need to look beyond just having a tool we use for our daily activities and start thinking in the direction of developing a system which can help meet certain human needs”, Inuwa said.

While highlighting some of the benefits of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, the Director-General said that the algorithm which is the AI that powers social media is a machine that needs to be trained and controlled, in order to avoid it spiralling out of control.

“Due to the happenings on social media, industry practitioners are pushing for “explainability in the AI”, also referred to as “black box” within the AI algorithm”

“Imagine having a system that makes decisions for us and does not understand the way it came about making that decision, now, that is indeed a red flag, having AI go out of control, so, we need to get AI to be always for humanity, because it is the most existential threat to humanity today”, the DG stressed.

Inuwa said, “countries around the world are making efforts toward deciphering the functionalities of artificial intelligence and coming up with policies and putting standards in place to ensure they are AI ready countries, and so Nigeria cannot take the back seat”.

“In Nigeria, we are looking at it from three perspectives; having AI ready principles, data and AI ready security”.

“This invariably means that as a matter of principle, we should have redlines that AI must not cross, to achieve this, last year we started our journey by crowdsourcing on how to build National AI Policy and we have the first draft ready”, Inuwa maintained.

According to Inuwa, “when the present administration came onboard, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu mandated the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy to accelerate the diversification of the Nigerian economy by enhancing productivity in critical sectors through technological innovation, and we strongly believe that to achieve this, AI is our best tool to use in that regard”.

“To take this further, we launched a call for research, where we are offering a grant to forty five Nigerians to do research on Artificial Intelligence, so that we get a feedback on how to use AI in Health, Education, Agriculture, Finance, Security and many more.”

“We are giving up to N5Million to each researcher because we want to co-create and design the policy collaboratively, not the government using arm chair theories to come up with the policies, we need everybody to be onboard”, the Director-General noted.

The NITDA Boss who also emphasised the need to speed up efforts to connect the unconnected in order for them to be digitally feasible ahead of the AI adoption and deployment in the country, added that if they are infeasible, the AI will not consider them while making decisions.

Inuwa who went on to explain other perspectives, including data and security, sued for global standards for the regulation of AI.

“We are seeing how AI is becoming biased, gender biased and even exhibiting racist behaviour, partly because of the data used to develop it. So, if you develop an AI system amd train it in another country and decide to take it elsewhere, it will not work, hence, the need for global data for every one use to train it”, Inuwa enunciated.

Also harping on Nigeria’s abundant resources, talents and youthful population, Inuwa affirmed that the country has a competitive advantage in becoming the frontier in digital technological innovation.

“Although we lost out during the first, second and third Industrial Revolutions because they needed capital investment but in the fourth, we can use our talents to compete with any country in the world, given the fact that talent is the human component of technology”.

“To achieve this, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, unveiled the Strategic Plan for the Ministry which has strategic pillars, including, Knowledge, Policies, Infrastructure, and Trade”, the DG mentioned.

In conclusion, Inuwa avowed that AI is a top priority for NITDA as the Agency’s National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) underpins the attention drawn to it.

The event which was the 5th in its series was organised by Image Merchant Promotion Ltd in conjunction with Coalition Society Organizations also featured presentations on Security and Spokespersons Communication Awards as well as goodwill messages.

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Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Mr. Femi Adesina; Spokesperson of Department of State Security Service (DSS), Dr. Peter Afunanya and Media Aide to Justice Minister, Dr. Gwandu, were among the recipients celebrated at the annual ‘Security and Emergency Management Awards’ (SAEMA); and Spokespersons Communication Awards’ (SCA).

The dual events took place at the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja.

Adesina who was Chairman of the Occasion was surprised when he was conferred with an award on Strategic Communication as a Distinguish Fellow of SCA.

President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR, Mallam Mukhtar Sirajo, in a keynote address, while decrying worsening insecurity in the country, highlighted the importance of strategic communication as a panacea for mitigating all kinds of socio-ethnic tensions.

Sirajo recalled how their Institute recently deployed strategic communication as a tool for enhancing national integration in the contemporary Nigerian State, which he said is divided.

The summit was held in various states of the federations on a regional basis.

The NIPR boss, observed that their ‘Citizens Summit on National Peace, Security and Integration, which was held across the six geo-political zones a few months ago, brought Nigerians from different works of life to harness their diversity for the collective good of all.

“What the SAEMA and SCA convener, Mal. Yushau Shuaib of PRNigeria is doing by annually organizing these auspicious events, is part of the strategic communication needed to re-set Nigeria,” said Sirajo.

In his remark, Adesina, Chairman of the Occasion, lauded Mal. Shuaib for consistently providing the general public with authoritative and factual information on security-related issues and matters.

“PRNigeria is my go-to on insurgency and banditry reports. It is one news medium which many people do not doubt its reportage on security issues,” said the presidential spokesman.

Adesina, while speaking further, lamented that majority of Nigerians prefer negative reports about setbacks suffered by military and security agencies against terrorists, bandits and other criminals.

He said: “You that spread the good news about the success story of our troops become the butt of their jokes and their enemy”.

The Director of Defence Information, Major General Jimmy Akpor commended the PRNigeria for hosting the annual awards on security and communication.

“In the military, we trust the credibility and the independent editorial of PRNigeria as it reports activities in the sectors with fairness, accuracy and facts that also protect our national security and interest,” Gen Akpor added.

While welcoming guests to the ceremony, Shuaib, who also is the Publisher of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential, said that their SAEMA has so much become a household name among security agencies, stakeholders and experts “that we received 145 entries this year, out of which we had to work round the clock to come up with two finalists for each of the categories.

He said: “Let me however at this point make it known that all the finalists are thoroughly deserving of not only the nomination but also the awards. It was therefore a lot of work, via a transparent process, before our team of unbiased experts and professionals could select the eventual winners who will go home with the award plaques”.

Like every year, he noted that, some winners of their last year SAEMA and SCA events also conquered Africa and the world.

“Three of our last year winners did not only win awards at the Africa Public Relations Association (APRA) ceremony in Tanzania but they also emerged finalists at the Golden World Award of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) scheduled to take place in Japan where the book “101 Fake News on EndSARS” emerged a winner.

“At the Digital Communication Awards (DCA) in Germany, NITDA was also shortlisted among the finalists with another award-winning book “Digital Innovation for Economic Prosperity.” All these came a year after IMPR was declared the most creative PR Agency in the world (2020),” said Shuaib.

The 2nd SAEMA and SCA events were hosted in collaboration with the Centre for Crisis Communication, CCC, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, the International Emergency Management Society, TIEMS, and The Media Today, TMT.

The SAEMA recognizes outstanding gallantry, and contributions to safety, security and Emergency Management in Nigeria, while the SCA recognizes the most outstanding public relations campaigns and communications strategies by professionals, groups and institutions.

Individuals honoured at the awards ceremony included Femi Babafemi of NDLEA as the Spokesperson of the Year; Dr. Umar Gwandu of Justice Ministry for Public Affairs; Dr. Peter Afunanya of the Department of State Services, DSS, for Crisis Communication; Lt. Col. Ishaya Aliyu for Gallantry; Air Comdr Edward Gabkwet for Crisis Management, Ismail Omipidan for Media Relations, ACP Daniel Amah as the Security Officer of the Year, and Mal. Ibrahim Salim Umar of Daily Trust as Humanitarian Journalist of the Year among others.

The institutional award recipients included the Kaduna NIPR Chapter for Event Management; Lagos NIPR Chapter for Best Chapter of the Year; Nigeria Police Public Relations School for Knowledge Hub; NITDA for Social Media; NIMC for Corporate Reputation Management; EFCC for Cybercrime Prevention; ICPS for Public Information; DIA for Intelligence and Safety, NCS for Training, NSCDC for Emergency Management, NCoS for Community Service, CISA for Volunteers among others.

Other recipients included Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigerian Navy, Reignite Public Affairs, NCC, CAC, Central Bank of Nigeria, Samuel Adeyemi of NIPR Lagos, Uba Misili of Gombe State and Prof Emmanuel Dandaura.

Meanwhile, a group of students from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria were honoured with the Young Communicators Awards.

Other dignitaries at the occasion included Major General Chris Olukolade as Military Spokesperson, Brig Gen Sanu Usman Kukasheka as Army Spokesperson, Air Comdr Anas Yusuf Retired of Centre for Crisis Communication, Dr Sule Yau Sule Chairman of the Jury Panel, Mal Ismail Sani of Wonderland Television among others

By PRNigeria

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TECHDIGEST – Image Merchants Promotions Limited (IMPR), the publishers of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential has called for nomination for the annual Security and Emergency Management Awards (SAEMA) and the Spokespersons Communication Awards (SCA) 2022.

The two awards are hosted by Emergency Digest and Spokespersons Digest, both specialised publications of IMPR.

While Emergency Digest’s SAEMA awards would recognize outstanding gallantry, rescue efforts and contributions to safety and security, the Spokesperson’s Digest’s SCA awards are instituted to recognize the most outstanding public relations campaigns, communications strategies and those beyond the campaigns that are carried out between 2021 and 2022.

Entries for nominations for different categories of the awards are open till September 30, 2022.

The Panel of Judges for Security awards are seasoned and respected security experts and humanitarian workers, conflict and crisis management scholars. The panel of juries for the Spokespersons Awards is comprised of seasoned communication scholars, PR specialists, public communicators, media strategists, and journalists.

For Nomination clicks visit these weblinks:

SAEMA Security Award: https://emergencydigest.com/saema-award/

Spokespersons’ Awards: https://spokespersonsdigest.com/spokesperson-award/

By PRNigeria

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TECHDIGEST – The Director of Defence Information (DDI), Defence Headquarters, Major General Benjamin Olufemi Sawyer has baggae the “Media Friendly Personality” of the year award at the 3rd Security and Emergency Management Award (SAEMA) 2021.

The Award Ceremony which took place Saturday at NICON Luxury Hotel Abuja, conferred the honors on General Sawyer for demonstrating exceptional leadership qualities, amiability and high sense of responsibility in discharging his duty.

“Within the short period of his tenure, he enhanced media relations activities by attending to press inquiries most times even in the face of occasional provocations. He also organized media workshops and retreats to further enhance mutual and beneficial relationships,” the citation for his award said.

Upon assuming duty in July, Sawyer promised to run an open door policy to fast track information needed by journalists to carry out their reportage.

Now in its third year, the SAEMA Award was organized by the Emergency Digest, a publication of the award-winning Image Merchants Promotion Limited in conjunction with the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) to publicly acknowledge and celebrate outstanding contributions in security and emergency management with a view to creating a resilient and professional approach in tackling national challenges.

It also featured the SABRE Awards and the Inaugural Spokesperson’s Communication Awards (SCA).

Also honoured at the event was Lt. Col. Ponfa Andrew Wuyep of the Nigerian Army, Flt. Lt. Abayomi A. Dairo of the Nigerian Airforce, and Inspector Abimaje Isaiah of the NSCDC and ASP Mariam Yusuf of the police.

Others winners of individual categories of the SAEMA award included , Mrs Abimbola Animashawun of the Nigeria Customs Service, Saminu Audu of the Civilian JTF and Sifon Essien of the TVC.

By PRNigeria

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TECHDIGEST – Emergency Digest, the organiser of the Security and Emergency Management Award is set to introduce the Humanitarian Journalism Award category at the Forthcoming Security and Emergency Management Awards, SAEMA.

The Editor in Chief, Yushau Shuaib disclosed this at a media parley with Humanitarian Journalists in Abuja, Nigeria.

He said the introduction of the Humanitarian Journalism Award based on the importance humanitarian journalism plays in the production of factual accounts about crises and issues that affect human welfare by providing early emergency warnings, raising awareness and supports and monitoring the treatment of citizens.

“Humanitarian Journalists provide information as essential needs such as the benefit of water, food, medicine or shelter for humanity. Humanitarian journalists go beyond the routine of traditional reporting of disaster and crises by providing accurate, timely and reliable information that helps people in and from the humanitarian crisis”.

Shuaib stated the annual event which started in 2019 was initiated to recognise the immeasurable and invaluable contribution to the security, peace and development of Nigeria by the military, security, intelligence and response agencies, their management and personnel as well as other institutions and individuals.

“SAEMA is an initiative of Emergency Digest, a sister publication of PRNigeria which is published by Image Merchants Promotions Limited. The annual event is hosted in partnership with the Centre for Crisis Communication and Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).

“The idea behind the award series is to publicly acknowledge and appreciate the agencies (and the individuals behind them) with a view to creating resilient and professional approach in the management of security and emergency situations in the country. The Awards celebrate the best of the bests in security and response agencies in Nigeria,” he explained.

According to him, the recurrence of both man-made and natural disasters has over time precipitated insecurity and humanitarian consequences in Nigeria.

“These tragic occurrences have placed the activities and operations of agencies and departments saddled with the responsibility of managing security and emergencies in the front burner”.

“The country is currently assailed in all fronts by different degrees of man-made adversities ranging from terrorism to kidnappings, armed banditry, cattle rustling, farmers-herdsmen clashes, banditry, pipeline vandalism, armed robbery, rape, drug addiction, human trafficking, ritual killings, cybercrimes/internet frauds, sectarian tensions, inter and intra-communal and political tensions, ethno-religious conflicts, etc. It is also buffeted periodically by such natural disasters as flood, fire, erosion menace, desertification, disease outbreaks/epidemics etc,” he emphasised.

“Meanwhile, mindful that the priority of any government is to ensure the security of lives and property of citizens, to guarantee safe and secured environment for socio-economic activities to thrive without let or hindrance, Nigeria has a number of agencies and departments whose statutory responsibilities are primarily to take care of security and emergency needs of the people”.

“Given the indispensability of their statutory roles, these agencies of government and the people behind them are constantly on their toes to prevent, tackle or mitigate the impacts of man-made or natural adversities”.

The next award will be held on December 18, 2021 at NICON LUXURY HOTEL with Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami as the Keynote Speaker will deliver a paper on “Supporting Legal Response and Criminal Justice to Counter-Terrorism.”

The awards is categorised into Institutional award categories which include: Public Information, Crime Prevention, Diligent Investigation, Community Service, Civil-Military Relations and Emergency Management

Special Award Categories are Training Institute of the Year, Cybercrime Prevention, Humanitarian Service and Volunteer Group.

Individual award categories are Security- Humanitarian Journalist, Law Enforcement Officer, Crisis Communicator, Gallantry, Security Officer of the Year and Military Officer of the Year.

By PRNigeria

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TECHDIGEST – The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami has bagged Security and Emergency Managememt Award (SAEMA) for championing implementation of policy and policy against cyber attacks and online criminal activities.

The award which waa presented by the Executive Secretary Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC), Air Commmodore Yusuf Anas Retired was in recognition of Minister’s contributions in facilitating projects on cybersecurity to tackle cybercrimes and online frauds.

The investiture was made at the sideline of an official presentation of a book, titled, Digital Innovation for Economic Prosperity in Nigeria by Image Merchants Promotion Limited, the publishers of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential.

The CCC boss said: “Under the leadership of Dr. Ali Pantami, the Ministry established an international standard Computer Emergency Response and Readiness Team (CERRT) at NITDA Headquarters targeted at upgrading Nigeria’s cybersecurity to promote national security.

“As watchdog of the federal government, the Computer Emergency Response and Readiness Team (CERRT) helps Nigeria to monitor potential cyber-attacks, detect and mitigate potential cybersecurity threats on the country.

“Similarly, the ministry has upgraded and added more Emergency Communication Centres (ECCs) undertaken by Nigerian Communication Commission (CCC) for tackling insecurity through activating emergency numbers in cases of emergencies across many states.

“The ministry has also provided necessary technology to enable security agencies to effectively tackle insecurity in the country.”

While commending the Emergency Digest and CCC, the organisers of the award, Dr. Pantami said that the government would continue to provide technological tools for tackling insecurity in the country.

His words, “Technology has been addressing (security) but in our own area, we are not security agencies. The security agencies are the ones that are supposed to leverage on the technology to do their own work and we have been mandated to give them all the necessary support.

“Since my first day in office, we have been giving them (security agencies) support.  Any support they need in technology to do their work.

“It is their work to leverage technology.  It is not our duty to say this is what to achieve.  What they require, we have provided 100 per cent, not even 99 per cent and we will continue to do that.”

On the 5G technology deployment, the minister said that the Draft Policy would be presented to the federal Executive Council (FEC), after the working Group set up on the it concludes its assignment.

He said that the government started the process in 2020 but was confronted with the COVID-19 conspiracy theory.

According to him, following the confirmation by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that the two were not related, the conspiracy theory has been destroyed intellectually and scientifically.

“In spite of that, we set up a Working group to study the effectiveness. Accordingly, people from technology, health, environment and security.  They have been working for over a year on the policy of deployment of 5G in Nigeria, so that we can be on the same page and be sure there is no vacuum that others can exploit to the detriment of the citizens of our country.

“So we are on the same page and I think the policy will soon be presented before the Federal Executive Council.  When it is approved, the National Frequency Management Council will assign Spectrum to NCC and NCC will release it to operators for deployment.”

Speaking earlier at the book presentation, Dr. Pantami the publication provided insights into Nigeria’s digital economy and his Ministry’s approach towards developing it.

He observed that digital innovation has led to a shift from the traditional economy into the digitalized one, and this digital transformation of the economy has led to economic prosperity in Nigeria and around the world.

The minister urged Nigerians to develop the habit of reading, as according to him, “Readers are leaders” and that all noted world leaders were people who spend quality time reading.

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TECHDIGEST – In September 2019, over a dozen entries were received nominating DCP Abba Kyari for a certain category of the First Security and Emergency Management Awards (SAEMA). At that time and up till recently, the now-suspended police officer was the most celebrated crime-buster in the Nigeria Police Force, leading him to be given the sobriquet of a “Supercop” for his extraordinary, if not close to legendary, prowess in tracking down and nabbing armed robbers and kidnappers.

The Chairperson of the awards panel, retired Air Vice Marshall Mohammed Audu-Bida, while considering other factors, urged members of the panel to reach out to senior officers in the security services for their comments on the process and probably put forward more nominations of potential awardees in the various categories being rewarded.

Thereafter, more nominations of gallant but unsung security personnel were received, especially from the Police, which have many officers who are mostly involved in intelligence and combat operations.

The former FCT Police Commissioner, now Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Bala Ciroma, had eloquent testimonies of how he had led officers and men of the Command in discreet operations that culminated in the arrests and occasional elimination of vicious armed gangs that were terrorising and abducting innocent people. Some of the cases and suspects were subsequently referred to the Force Headquarters or other security services for further actions.

Rather than accept his nomination, Ciroma had suggested a very thorough and disciplinarian female police officer, CSP Olabisi Davies, who was DPO at Wuye, which had become one of the most peaceful districts in Abuja. The policewoman was always on patrol at night, seeking out those involved in nefarious activities, usually under the cover of darkness. She also had a track record of successfully turning young offenders into productive citizens through counselling in the district.

Similarly, one DCP Kolo Yusuf, who had also led his team to capture over 100 kidnappers terrorizing innocent people in mostly the North-West and North-Central zones, politely declined his nomination for an award but rather recommended the twin police officers, Hassan and Hussaini Gimba, who were noted as developing remarkable profiles in crime-fighting in his team.

The twins have appeared on several verified videos clips interrogating arrested criminals, whose sophisticated weapons and arms had equally been wrested from them and put forward as exhibits. Strangely too, the twin officers had insisted that unless the Police Headquarters endorsed their nomination, they could not honour the award events.

There was also another counter-terrorism police officer, CSP Ibrahim Mohammed, who had not only competently engaged ISWAP/Boko Haram terrorists in combat, but had led his team on several rescue operations involving citizens, including soldiers, who were delivered from the vice-grip of the insurgents in Borno State.

In fact, the story of DCP Tunde Disu, who replaced Abba Kyari, constitutes another chapter entirely. Disu has saved many lives, especially those of youths and young graduates, who could have found themselves either as victims or engaged in fraud and other criminal activities. It was only when it had become absolutely necessary, and there was unassailable evidence of wrongdoing that Disu ever agreed to the public parade of crime suspects.

There are indeed many security personnel in the Force today, who are performing exceedingly well in their areas of responsibility and would rather keep low profiles than cultivate unnecessary public exposure, due to the sensitive nature of their assignments. They are the unsung security personnel but highly dedicated to the protection of the lives and properties of which only a very few are ever celebrated.

While it is regrettable that Abba Kyari allowed overzealousness, exuberance and indiscretion to define his actions in his security and law enforcement duties, I would rather blame the society, his media handlers and the Police Force for what is now deemed as his fall from grace to grass.

Even though society naturally appreciates the gallantry of our security agencies and officials, it was quite unfortunate that many top public functionaries and business people were inviting DCP Kyari to their events and posting such engagements in the media to ratchet up their social standing. And yet ill-advisedly too, instead of becoming very cautious about some of these outings, Kyari appeared to have gotten carried away and revelled in the spotlight, leading to the abuse of the privileges and disposition of his sensitive strategic positions, in hobnobbing with people of questionable integrity, and equally posting these on social media platforms.

While the media developed interests in his exploits as a crime fighter, they allowed him or his media handlers to promote his efforts, rather than those of his team to the high heavens. This became one of his major Achilles heels. There is a huge gulf between the practice of public relations and the indulgence in publicity as an end in itself. In PR, not all activities need to be publicised or promoted because of the potential fallouts of such exposure. Some publicity in terms of policing or security duties could end up enabling the reprisal intents of the targets of one’s exertions, besides the envy of peers and enemies that comes which such territory.

As an institution with moral and ethical values, the Police appeared not to have been able to tame Kyari, even when he was showing up in very lousy places for the glitz of the celebrity showcase. Instead of reprimanding and curtailing him, the command seemed to have gotten caught up in the cult of the celebrity of an individual, rather than the celebration of the team. In fact, when his younger sister got married in 2019, the creme de la creme of society ‘stormed’ Maiduguri, including the then Inspector General of Police, among top dignitaries, in what was a high society event witnessing guest arrivals in different aircraft.

Meanwhile, DCP Kyari’s case still hangs on the balance. Before the American FBI went public in indicting him, as it has done, it ought to have contacted its Nigerian counterpart with the overwhelming evidence it had against the super cop, as it is traditionally the case. Even at that, it might be difficult to perfect the extradition of Abba Kyari to the United States of America on technical grounds, alongside other militating factors. Similar indictments by the American system against prominent Nigerians were not consummated in the extradition of these personalities. There was the case of a politician, Senator Buruji Kashamu, indicted for alleged illicit drug peddling, which was ongoing before he died, and there is the example of the owner of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, over money laundering claims, as recent references.

While he could attempt to hide under the concept of an agent provocateur to defend himself in this situation, nevertheless his work as an undercover operative is not known. In fact, agent provocateurs are expected to act as secret agents encouraging suspected criminals to carry out their illegal activities as a way of obtaining evidence. However, Abba Kyari could not be said to fit into this role because he has been widely promoted as a known or overt crime fighter.

My greatest concern has been the huge damage this affair has done to our law enforcement services, as a well-decorated officer considered as one of our finest, who had taken enormous risks in resolving fighting crime and saving lives (winning laurels, accolades and swift promotions) is suddenly discovered to have gone rogue or compromised at some point.

There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the Abba Kyari affair, especially by law enforcement officials on reputation management and the seductive adulation of the public spotlight.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Author of “Award-Winning Crisis Communication Strategies” and “An Encounter with the Spymaster”
www.YAShuaib.com

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TECH DIGEST – Emergency Digest, a publication of the award-winning Image Merchants Promotion Limited, hereby calls for nomination for the second edition of its Security and Emergency Management Award (SAEMA), billed to take place in December 2020.

Security and Emergency Management Awards is an annual event which is organized to address critical and major issues bothering around National security and emergency management issues with a view of proffering solutions to several challenges and further national security.
The idea behind the event is to also publicly acknowledge and appreciate the agencies (and the individuals behind them) with a view to creating resilient and professional approach in the management of security and emergency situations in the country. The Awards is an annual event envisioned to celebrate the best of the bests in security and response agencies in Nigeria.
Entries for nominations are opened to all Nigerians including individuals, groups and non-organisations responsible for law enforcement, humanitarian services and security and military operations in the protection of life and properties.

The Panel of Judges for the entries are seasoned and respected security and humanitarian experts, scholars and the industry players.”

According to a statement issued on Friday by the organisers of the award, SAEMA was instituted to recognize the immeasurable and invaluable contributions of individuals, groups and relevant stakeholders to peace development, security and emergency management in Nigeria.

“The award will recognize outstanding gallantry, rescue efforts, safety measures, teamwork and immense contributions to safety in the country,” the statement said.

In the first edition of the SAEMA Awards, Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq; EC of Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Air Force, and Nigerian Customs Service, are among the notable individuals and organizations who carted away various awards during the auspicious occasions.

But even more heartwarming is the fact that NCC, Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Air Force who were part of the awardees, shortly after SAEMA’s recognition, went ahead to bag international awards for their outstanding contributions to national development and efficient service delivery.

Nominations of outstanding security institutions and emergency management and response agencies and personnel can be made on www.EmergencyDigest.com/SAEMA.

For enquiries, partnership and sponsorship, contact the Manager of Emergency Digest, Shittu Yunus Shittu via mailsyshittu@gmail.com or 08067372716.

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