Insecurity: Mining Marshals Commander Calls For Institutional Collaboration

The Commander of the Mining Marshals, John Onoja has called for more inter-agency collaboration in the fight against insecurity, warning that the country’s changing threat environment has outgrown the capacity of a single institution.

Speaking At the 2025 RazorNews Inter-Agency Cooperation Awards on Thursday on the theme “Institutional Collaboration as a Tool for Counter-Terrorism and Crime,” the commander said terrorist and criminal networks have become more agile and transnational, exploiting illegal mining, arms trafficking, cyber tools, and cross-border logistics to bankroll violence.

He described Nigeria’s solid minerals sector as a “critical economic lifeline” long infiltrated by criminal syndicates, turning illicit mining into “an accelerant feeding the machinery of terror.” The Mining Marshals, he noted, were established precisely to sever those illicit financial pipelines and retake areas previously held by non-state actors.

According to him, the unit’s early gains—disrupting illegal mining hubs, recovering stolen minerals, and dismantling entrenched syndicates—were achieved only because of sustained cooperation with the Army, Police, DSS, EFCC and other security formations.

“These criminals operate without boundaries, without bureaucracies and without hesitation. To defeat such threats, no single institution—no matter how capable—can act alone,” he said.

Invoking structural functionalism, he argued that Nigeria’s security architecture is only as strong as the interdependence of its component agencies. Failure in one part, he said, reverberates across the entire security system.

The Mining Marshals chief warned that criminal networks are rapidly evolving deploying drones, encrypted communication, and cryptocurrency while state institutions remain trapped in silos, turf rivalries and bureaucratic inertia.

He urged the codification of inter-agency cooperation through legislation mandating intelligence sharing, joint operations, unified prosecution protocols and shared training platforms.

“Intelligence is the oxygen of counter-terrorism. When agencies share data in real time, threats are neutralised before they mature,” he said.

The commander added that collaboration reduces costs, eliminates duplication and strengthens public confidence at a time when security budgets face unprecedented pressure.

He applauded RazorNews for spotlighting inter-agency excellence, saying the awards help shift Nigeria’s security culture from competition to cooperation. Today’s honourees, he noted, demonstrate what is possible when institutions pool mandates instead of guarding turf.

He reaffirmed the Mining Marshals’ readiness to work with federal, state, local and international partners to safeguard the nation’s mineral wealth and dismantle networks fueling insecurity.

The event drew senior figures from Nigeria’s security establishment. The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, was represented by the Lagos Commissioner of Police, Moshood Jimoh. The Minister of Defence, General Christopher Gwabi-Musa (rtd), was represented by Rear Admiral Olusanya Bankole (rtd), former Head of Civil Military Relations. The Olowo of Iwo, Oba Adewale Akanbi, Telu I, was also in attendance, alongside multiple security agencies.