Kaduna State has begun training 1,000 forest guards in a major push to tackle insecurity in rural areas and forest corridors, as Governor Uba Sani adds community-based policing to the state’s security response.
The six-week intensive training, facilitated by the Office of the National Security Adviser in partnership with the Kaduna State Government, kicked off this week. Recruits, drawn largely from frontline communities, are expected to complement existing security agencies in intelligence gathering and monitoring of vulnerable forests.
Addressing the trainees, Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Sule Shaibu, stressed discipline and professionalism, while thanking President Bola Tinubu and Governor Uba Sani for making the initiative possible.
“We want to use this opportunity to thank His Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who has made this possible. We also want to thank our Governor, Senator Dr. Uba Sani. After the training, they will be redeployed to strategic areas, particularly where we feel their services will be most needed,” Shaibu said.
Chief of Staff to the Governor, Sani Liman Kila, described the programme as a “landmark intervention,” noting that participants were carefully selected from flashpoint areas.
“These participants are captured from flashpoint areas where there is so much terrain. At the end of the six weeks training, these officers will be deployed back to the flashpoint. With the deployment of this personnel, the issue of security in Kaduna State will drastically reduce,” Kila said.
The forest guards will be deployed to Birnin Gwari, Giwa and Igabi local government areas, where their familiarity with the terrain is expected to boost ongoing operations against banditry and kidnapping.
The rollout comes weeks after Governor Uba Sani inaugurated Kaduna’s first formal state-level Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) framework, positioning the state as one of the few in Nigeria combining military action with dialogue, rehabilitation and community security structures.
