The Challenges of Intelligence Gathering in the Third World- A Critique of the Nexus between Poverty and Public Policy Process

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenges confronting Intelligence Gathering in the Third World, using Nigeria as point of departure. The study seeks to evaluate the extent to which public policy decision makers and security formations have usefully harnessed the potentials of Intelligence Gathering to the prevailing wave of preventive violent internal security challenges in Nigeria; which are currently attracting global concern. The paper adopts descriptive methodology and desk research as its methodological orientation. However, the results of the analyses revealed that the basic principles of Intelligence Gathering, particularly those relating to Human Intelligence (HUMINT) that are expected to be effectively coordinated, harnessed and tactically utilized to curb the increasing rate of crimes and internal security crises in Nigeria, have been grossly compromised by security agencies and their informants. The study further revealed that the activities of the Nigeria Police Force, Department of State Service (DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, the Nigerian Custom Services, the Nigerian Immigration Services, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, etc are grossly below expectation in Human Intelligence Gathering efforts. The paper also argued that poor handling of Intelligence Gathering Techniques (HUMINT) largely accounts for abysmal failure of the Nigeria’s internal security programme implementation in the last decades. This further explains the increasing spate of internal security problems currently witnessed all over the Nigeria’s political space. The paper, therefore, recommends among others, the imperatives for restructuring of Intelligence Gathering structures, apparatuses and mechanisms in Nigeria; that will not only confront the factors responsible for the current systemic and institutional crises, but also reposition Intelligence Gathering framework in the efforts to redress violent threats to internal security across Nigeria.