The Minister of Environment, Alhaji Balarabe Abbas, has said that the Federal Government would set up security forces to deal with various types of miscreants that have taken over some Nigerian forests.
Abbas spoke on Thursday at the Ministry’s top management retreat in Kaduna State.
The retreat has as its theme, ‘Policy Embedment and Prioritization of Key Action for a Renewed Hope in Environmental Management’.
“It is quite unfortunate that most of our forests have been taken over by bandits, kidnappers and other terrorists that have been unleashing mayhem on innocent Nigerians.
”This is an issue that is of much concern to President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Government will soon set up enough forces to beef up security in the forests.
”We are liaising with the Military, DSS, Police and other security agencies in this direction so as to remedy the ugly trend.”
According to him, efforts were being intensified by the Federal Government to cleanse up the forests of illegal loggers and other sundry criminals making life miserable in the forests.
Stressing that the various tree species in the country must be adequately protected, he noted that the Federal Government is doing everything humanly possible to address all environmental challenges.
The minister noted that the Federal Government was pondering on introducing Coastal Guards in the country to boost security in Nigeria ‘s coastal waters.
