France, Nov. 27 -- Tinubu said the police would hire 20,000 more officers, raising their strength to 50,000, and authorised the use of National Youth Service Corps camps as training centres. He also told the police to withdraw officers from VIP guard duties for redeployment to conflict zones after crash retraining.

He gave the Department of State Services approval to deploy trained forest guards and recruit more staff to flush out armed groups hiding in forests.

"This is a national emergency, and we are responding by deploying more boots on the ground, especially in security-challenged areas," Tinubu said in a statement Wednesday, adding there would be "no more hiding places for agents of evil."

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