Armed security guards for airports?
The Federal Government’s plan to ensure that Aviation Security [AVSEC] personnel bear arms in the next three months needs to be reviewed to ensure that it conforms with global best practices. President of Aviation Round Table (ART), Mr Gbenga Olowo, who disclosed the plan’s impending implementation last Wednesday in Lagos, said the primary objective of AVSEC was protection and safety of passengers, crew, ground personnel, aircraft and facilities serving the civil aviation sector.
To assert that the plan has been approved, the ART merely counselled government on ensuring that there is synergy among the security agencies at the airports, saying the airport security architecture should cover elements of the various security agencies which will now form the new organogram. He added that, “this will eliminate inter agency rivalry, foster cooperation, provide common platform to asses measure of effectiveness, process operational effectiveness and afteraction plans.’’
No doubt that in view of the evolving security challenges facing the nation, especially the perennial threat of terror attacks, government should ensure that airport security arrangement should be thought out in a manner that they are ahead of terrorists and other criminal elements. In many developed countries, especially in the West and Asia, security operatives are very proactive and have been able to forestall terror attacks at airports.
Since 1975 when the Provisional Irish Republican Army [IRA] bombed Dublin airport, there have been many such terrorist attacks on airports, including the 2017 terrorist attack at the Orly airport in France. Over the years, European countries have revised and overhauled the security arrangement at their airports, but the new approaches do not include the bearing of arms by airport security personnel. That is why government needs to rethink its plan.
What these countries have done is to introduce technologies that would prevent security breaches. To achieve this, they work with experts in the security industry to develop the kind of technology that would prevent terrorists from taking advantage of the relaxed and positive atmosphere at airports by striking and causing damage to travellers and airport infrastructure. Such technology now includes 3D imaging technology which is being used to screen bags and at checkpoints, while biometric technology is also being deployed to increase awareness of who passengers are in order to predict what they could do.
Apart from security technology, there is emphasis on intelligence gathering through various levels of cooperation in and outside the aviation section. All the security agencies in developed countries share intelligence information that would make it difficult for terror plots to sail through without being detected. A combination of intelligence and technological capacity makes it possible to analyse and secure travel environments, passengers and their property. It is not only arms-bearing security personnel that can secure the airport. At most airports, there are hardly and visible armsbearing security operatives, yet criminals are arrested either in the act or before they carry out their acts. The country with pronounced security presence is Hong Kong, whose security units are deployed around the airport and are armed with<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%26K_MP5>MP5 submachine guns and Glock 17 pistols. However, the security of the restricted area is the responsibility of the police and AVSECO. This is, however, not a model that should be imitated.
As it stands today, Nigeria is heavily militarised with many security agencies bearing arms. The controversy surrounding the approval of arms for the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps [NSCDC] has not subsided. The airport environment should be very leisurely and friendly, not where gun-wielding and fear-inducing security operatives are constant features. The challenge facing the country’s security architecture is that of improving on their intelligence gathering strategies, in such a way that they can infiltrate criminal gangs to frustrate their plots before they are hatched. It is better to deploy modern technology and gather quality intelligence than to infest our airports with arms-bearing security operatives.