Situation

An international NGO client approached Securewest to help facilitate an investigative tasking of theirs in and around the city of Lagos. It was identified that there was appetite for a holistic security solution.

In previous deployments, the client’s area of operations and the nature of their work would typically be characterised as ‘high risk’ with this task firmly falling into that category. Upon understanding their proposed travel management plan, we offered up a bespoke security solution, tailored to complement the low-profile nature of their work and ultimately facilitate the safe movements and further aid the support of their own organic contingent.

Solution

During the pre-deployment and planning phase our in-house team of intelligence analysts identified several hotels that would not only suit them from a security standpoint but also ideally situate them for their engagement. This was accompanied by some location-specific reporting provided by both our intel team and our security partners on the ground in Lagos to establish a realtime ‘ground truth’ before entering the country. Running concurrently to this, our Global Response Centre were busy activating the team on the SPHERE travel risk management app, ensuring they were fully set up.

For the task, due to the sensitive nature of the work and the need for discretion, we agreed upon providing a ‘low-profile secure driver service’ to replace their original plan to utilise public transport and taxis. This bespoke service consisted of an English-speaking local national driver that would be on call and dedicated to the team for the two-week duration. The driver was instructed to wear his own local dress and would be driving a basic sedan type vehicle to maintain the required level of discretion throughout. Further to this, the driver was a member of the Nigerian SPY police and would retain his badge whilst engaged on this task; this alone carried a certain amount of weight without drawing any unwanted attention and was particularly helpful when negotiating vehicle checkpoints and other vulnerable situations.

Outcome

Throughout the task, all movements were backed up by a robust journey management plan and the support function from our in-country partner’s control room and Quick Reaction Force. All of this, coupled with the utilisation of Securewest’s 24/7 support capability and SPHERE tracking function, ensured a fluid, well-executed and, more importantly, safe and successful engagement for our client.

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