By Lamin Cham
West African Intelligence chiefs have started a two-day meeting in Banjul to discuss cyber space crime.
The meeting will allow delegates from the West African bloc of the CISSA, to discuss and share experience of the state of cyber crime in their respective countries as well as coordinate to present a regional report of threat of insecurity at the main CISSA conference in Abuja later this month.
The meeting is being hosted by the State Intelligence Service of the Gambia whose director general Ousman Sowe gave a detailed account of the repositioning of his institution since the change of government in 2017.
Mr Sowe thanked CISSA and many nation states around the globe for assisting the SIS in capacity building and other reform programmes.
He also addressed the theme of the meeting, Cyber Space crime.
Declaring the meeting open, the Minister of Information and Communications Infrastructure Ebrima Sillah, said the meeting was timely as there is a greater need now than ever before for closer collaboration between intelligence services in West Africa to combat all forms of national and regional security threats, real or imaginary.
Mr Sillah added that though West Africa has over the years made significant gains in consolidating regional peace and stability, the emergence of terrorism and other threats require collective efforts.
He said cyber space is getting more and more complex and as such, national security services in West Africa need stronger collaboration with critical stakeholders to enlighten people to understand the basic cyber security issues.
Other speakers included the executive executive of CISSA and its continental head.
The meeting continues today.
