DECONFLICTING NIGERIAS INTER-AGENCY INTELLIGENCE RIVALRY: AN EFFECTIVE MEASURE TO THE SECURITY OPERATIONS AGAINST ARMED BANDITRY AND KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM IN NORTHWEST NIGERIA

It is a generally accepted belief among scholars and practitioners that inter agency rivalry among inter connected organizations or institutionstends to distort the potentials embedded in a seamless inter-agency coordination and collaborative mechanisms. The Nigerias national strategic security and law enforcement inter-agency policy mechanisms designed to coordinate information/intelligence to support national security and law enforcement operations is not isolated from the persistent menace of inter-agency rivalry amid the humongous material, logistical and operational resources committed to supporting operations. The research therefore seeks to explores factors that have continued to sustain inter-agency intelligence rivalry among security and law enforcement intelligence agencies in the context of the security operations against armed banditry and kidnapping for ransom in northwest region of Nigeria. In the light of this, the research adopts qualitative research methods of data collection and analysis to explore  secondary data drawn from Nigeria’s national strategic security and counter insurgency policy documents, aimed at inter agency intelligence coordination and collaboration, as well as from other intelligence related literature in juxtaposition to primary data sourced from security and law enforcement officers and civilian components within the northwest region.