By Alex Ekemenah, Chief Analyst
The problem of lack of interagency cooperation among the nation’s security agencies is a constant reminder of the imperative of reforming the security and intelligence sector (SIS) and orients them towards collective efforts at combating contemporary security challenges facing the nation. This can only be achieved on the basis of interagency cooperation among the security agencies.
Introduction
The recent incident in which three of the police officers on covert mission to Taraba State to arrest a suspected notorious kidnapper were gruesomely killed and others wounded by soldiers left a bitter taste in the mouth of the nation. There can be no excuse for such wanton act of killing by the soldiers. This writer calls for full investigation of this incident and bring all the culprits to justice.
The incident happened at a time when the sincerity of the Federal Government is being seriously questioned by concerned citizens about tackling the growing spate of kidnappings and other criminal activities in the country. The social media was agog with all sort of hare-brained theories about what happened.
Naturally, this incident would be forgotten within the next few months. But the incident speaks directly to one of the major problems facing our national security agencies today: interagency cooperation and coordination precisely to avoid the kind of ugly event that has happened in this case. Yet this interagency cooperation and coordination cannot be achieved without carrying out wholesale reforms of the security agencies which are long overdue especially in view of the escalating security challenges facing the country today.
At this critical junction in the nation’s life, the reform of the security and intelligence sector (not excluding the military) constitute a central issue of State policy. The democratization process still ongoing in the country cannot be completed without the reform of the sector because the sector occupies a key position in the nation’s democratic rule. It is an imperative as a matter of State policy.
This write-up is meant to support the advocacy for interagency cooperation among the security agencies as political expediencies and administrative processes can permit it. These are “doables” within the overall interest of national security that foster economic development on a large scale. However, this write-up is not unmindful of the powerful factors and forces working against such interagency cooperation but appreciate the unquantifiable benefits such cooperation can bring to reduce the level of insecurity in the country or threats to national security.
On the other side is competition among the security agencies which is supposed to be a driver of breakthroughs in curbing insecurities but which unfortunately has not produce any landmark achievement in the history of security in Nigeria. The tendency to compete is real enough. The security agencies want to take individual credit. They don’t want to share it. That is understandable enough. But given the nature and scope of security challenges confronting the nation today, it can only make more sense if there is enough cooperation to produce larger and better results. And at any rate, competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive as both are sides of the same coin, both variables and dynamics of development. None is less important than the other.
This write-up is both analytical and normative in the sense that it underscore the imperative of reforming the security and intelligence sector to make it more effective in their service deliveries, make them more accountable to the nation – i.e. to the public starting from the premise that the essential role of the sector is to safeguard lives and properties of individual citizens, corporate bodies and national assets; including the fact that they are funded by taxpayers’ monies and for this reason cannot turn round to bite the fingers that feed it like ingrates.
Mission to Hell
A covert team sent by the Inspector General of Police embarked on a journey to Taraba State to carry out the arrest of a suspected kidnap kingpin in the village of Ibi. The mission ended up in an unexpected disaster.
The policemen were members of the Special Intelligence Response Team under the office of the Inspector General of Police. The incident happened along Ibi-Jalingo Road, Taraba State on Wednesday, August 7, 2019. They were hunting for a kidnapping lord, Alhaji Hamisu Bala a.k.a Wadume.
The IGP’s Special Intelligence Response Team is one of the specialized formations within the Nigerian Police Force, all created in response to the increasing wave of crimes in the country over the past two decades as well as dynamics of criminal activities in recent years. Not much is known about the team or how it operates – unlike the case of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that has become controversial and infamous for its brutalities (constant violations of the fundamental human rights of the citizens sparking public outcries and calls for its abolition).
Taraba State is one of the security flashpoints in the country. Many lives have been lost in the state as a result of all sort of criminal activities. Most disturbing is the fact that there have been large-scale pogroms committed by alleged Fulani herdsmen against the indigenes of the state, a situation that has pitted some of the elites (notably retired Lt. General T. Y. Danjuma, former Chief of Army Staff) of the state against the Federal Government in recent times. Lt. General Danjuma has accused soldiers of collaborating with criminals or shielding them when committing crimes against the people instead of protecting the people. This has become a sore point between him and the Federal Government. Taraba State is partly militarized as a result of presence of soldiers manning key access roads in the state with the purpose of stabilizing the state and protecting the people against men of the underworld. This was the reason why three military checkpoints were mounted along Ibi-Jalingo (or Ibi-Wukari road as some media reports named this particular route) alone – showing the level of insecurity in the state. This was the charged atmosphere in which the killing of the SIRT members took place.
There were key questions that arose as a result of this incident. Was the mission properly communicated along the chain of command to the military unit in Taraba State? Was the mission also properly communicated to the military check points along the concerned village route? Were the men of SIRT properly identified either by signal code or by any other mean by the soldiers at the check points? Who gave the order to the soldiers to open fire on the policemen? What actionable intelligence did the commander act upon to give the order to shoot at the policemen? These were some of the questions that need answers.
From what can be gathered so far, the SIRT properly identified itself to the soldiers at the three checkpoints before arresting Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume. The policemen could not have failed to do so because it is a “Standard Operating Procedure” for police from another unit to inform the police station in which jurisdiction they want to carry out an operation. There was effective verbal communication and interaction among all the parties involved. It was when the team was coming back after the arrest that the last military checkpoint opened fire on the team and got three of them and another civilian killed in cold blood. Information must have been distorted along the line providing the soldiers with alibi to open fire on the returning SIR team.
According to the Police High Command (Police Headquarters), the mission was properly communicated both to the Police Station in Ibi village and to the Army unit there. “Besides, the presence of the IRT personnel was well known to the Taraba Police Command as the Operatives officially and properly documented not only at the State Command Headquarters but also at the Wukari Area Command and the Ibi Divisional Headquarters. As a matter of fact, some of the Detectives from the Taraba State Command’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) were part of the operation”, said the Police in its press release aftermath the tragic incident.
The Police then went to raise very salient questions. “In the final analysis, we leave the Nigerian Army authorities to provide Nigerians with answers on the following questions emanating from their Press Release:
- Where is the notorious kidnapper, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume ‘rescued’ by the soldiers?
- How and why was Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume released by the soldiers?
- How could a kidnap suspect properly restrained with handcuffs by the Police escape from the hands of his military rescuers?
- If Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume is a ‘‘victim of kidnap’’ as claimed, and properly rescued by soldiers, why was he not taken to the Army Base for documentation purposes and debriefing in line with the Standard Operating Procedure in the Nigerian Army?
- Why were the Police Operatives shot at close range even after they had identified themselves as Police Officers on legitimate duty as evident in the video now in circulation?
There were equally other questions about the true identity of Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume and his relationship with the military. How did Wadume get the Army Captain’s cell phone number? How did they get to know each other? For how long have they known each other? What is the content of their relationship?
In a news story on the suspected kidnapping lord by The Nation newspaper on August 13, 2019, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume is said to be a “petty fish trader, painter, politician, polygamist with many children and a philanthropist. His wealth status might have been exaggerated because of his generosity and profligate spending”.
He was even said to have contested in the last general election polls, aiming to become a member of Taraba State House of Assembly representing Ibi Constituency, on the platform of the Young Democratic Party (YDP) without success.
The report gave a blow-by-blow account of how the SIRT arrived Ibi and successfully arrested Hamisu Bala Wadume and was on its way out of the zone when the mission met disaster at the last military checkpoint.
“After arresting the suspect, the operatives drove into Ibi town briefly and began to drive carefully out of the town.
“But while passing the coffee joint, (where Bala was picked) the suspected kidnapper forced his head out of the vehicle and shouted: “I have been kidnapped by these people.”
“Soon, the news spread and some of Bala’s ‘boys’ began to chase the vehicle on motorbikes. The operatives had passed the first and second check points, with only one remaining to pass.
“Bala’s accomplices then called the military checkpoint where the bus was ambushed. They opened fire on the bus conveying the operatives and the suspected kidnapper. The bus somersaulted into the bush, following the barrage of gun fire, as the driver lost control of the wheel.
“A source revealed that, after the killing of the three policemen and the civilian, Bala, who was handcuffed and chained in the legs, crawled and took refuge in the home of an old Jukun woman.
“The following day, he called his army captain friend who came with three of his ‘boys’ in a red Toyota Corolla”. (https://thenationonlineng.net/unmasking-kidnap-kingpin-wadume/) He was subsequently rescued by the Army Captain and his accomplices, delivered back to his village home but thereafter Wadume disappeared into thin air.
SIRT made grievous tactical error. After arresting and handcuffing Wadume, the police men did not blindfold him. They obviously did not also sandwich him inside the vehicle. This was how Wadume was able to identify the coffee shop, popped out his head and shouted that he had been kidnapped. The rest is history. The police bungled its own operation by not taking necessary precautions, by taking things for granted or by been careless. It was an unpardonable fatal error.
A Vanguard newspaper’s report of August 14, 2019, revealed that the Army Captain who had been identified, arrested and undergoing interrogation at the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, revealed that he had been having telephone conversations with the suspected kidnapper, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume.
The report said that police investigation carried out so far has revealed that telephone conversations between the kidnap kingpin, Wadume and the Captain, were about 191 within the space of one month between July 9, 2019 and August 6, 2019. The source explained that the police authorities believed that the army captain might have been providing cover for the kidnapper, who is said to have received hundreds of millions as ransom from his victims.
The report went further to say that the Army Captain, who is currently undergoing interrogation at the Defence Headquarters Abuja, was arrested alongside five other Army personnel, who were alleged to have taken part in the horrific killing of the three policemen and their two civilian agents in an operation to arrest a notorious kidnapper, Alhaji Hamisu Balla, alias Wudume, in Ibi area of Taraba State.
It was learnt that the arrested solders confessed that they received orders to attack the policemen from the captain, whom they said informed them that Wadume had been kidnapped and was being transported in a silver-coloured Toyota Hiace Bus. (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/08/taraba-police-killings-latest-army-captain-had-191-phone-chats-with-wanted-kidnapper/amp/?__twitter_impression=true)
What can be deduced from the above report confirms what many believed to be unholy collusion between some members of the law enforcement agencies and criminal elements across the country over the years. It vindicates what eminent personalities like retired Lt General T. Y. Danjuma have been vociferously proclaiming in recent times.
However, the report did not indicate how and where the duo came in contact with each other. Equally important was how Wadume survived the barrage of gun fires from the soldiers and was able to crawl out of the vehicle and with handcuff escaped to hide in an old woman’s residence till the following day before the arrival of his Army Captain friend. Is the handcuff not an indication that he might have been lawfully arrested by the Police? More questions to answer.
What was most outrageous about this incident was that the Police SIRT was on the trail of a kidnapping kingpin to Taraba State and just when the kingpin was already in their net, the soldiers intervened and egregiously allowed the kingpin to escape into thin air by killing those policemen in their official line of duties.
The soldiers showed no restraint at all. Even if the police officers were suspected to be criminal elements as initially claimed by the Army Headquarters, it is no justification to kill them on the spot. The soldiers could have overpowered them, and arrest them for further questioning. This did not happen. What rather happened, from all reports available so far was that the soldiers opened fire on the police officers even where there were circumstantial evidences to show that they were not criminal elements.
What the soldiers did, from all indications so far, was what is called “extreme prejudice” i.e. a deliberate and/or willful action aimed at scuttling whatever was the mission of the Police SIRT. It was not an “accident” per se, a “mistake” that occurred as a result of misinterpretation of information or intention of the SIRT. The Police SIRT was ambushed and terminated! This is where the Federal Government has to come in decisively to see that the culprits are appropriately punished. The Army Headquarters owes the nation an apology over this ugly incident. There is no point covering up the malicious and premeditated murderous action of the soldiers and their accomplices in this case. They cannot be exonerated from the culpable responsibility for the death of the police officers.
In this case, it is the Police that are crying to the high heavens because it is the victim, while the Army is feeling righteous in its action showing no remorse at all. If justice is not done in this case, it can only go to reinforce the existing animosity between the two agencies. It is further evidence that there is lack of adequate interagency cooperation among our security agencies.
Overall, it is pointless blaming one party against the other in this incident. Both parties are both side of the same dirty coin that is not easily marketable on the streets. The Police are as bad as the soldiers. For instance, just within the same period, a policeman shot dead a commercial bus driver along Abuja-Kaduna Expressway for refusal to give bribe to the police forcing other commercial bus drivers to block the Expressway for several hours. Similarly, it was also reported that one Mr. Chimaobi Nwaogwu, a commercial motorcyclist, aged 30, was shot dead by a soldier at a checkpoint at Umuokereke Ngwa Community of Abia State. It is a case of pot calling kettle black!
Thus rather than blame one party against the other, the critical issue for consideration is how best they can be made to perform their duties optimally and efficiently through reform and interagency cooperation.
Case for Reform
Nigeria is not lacking in the number of security agencies required by a modern nation to tackle security challenges facing it. Some of the security agencies even have specialized units devoted exclusively to tackling specific types of security challenges. An example of this is the Army’s Counter-terrorism Centre established in June 2012 which was born as a child of necessity in the face of Boko Haram campaign of terror and insurgency. The Army also has Special Forces/Commando Units trained to combat specific crimes especially those mounted by Boko Haram.
There are also three main security and/or intelligence agencies viz: State Security Service (popularly known as Department of State Security – DSS); Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA). We have the Police and the military as the traditional security agencies, the latter with its three known main branches (Army, Navy and Air Force) with their individual intelligence branches. Most popular is Army’s Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), including Naval Intelligence (NI) and Air Force Intelligence (AFI).
We also have the Customs Service, Immigration Service and their intelligence units. So also do we have National Civil Defence Corps. Not left out are the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) which are regarded as quasi-intelligence agencies focused on criminal investigations of economic, financial crimes and corrupt practices.
It has not escape the notice of close watchers of the Nigerian security landscape that Nigeria has only the security agencies that she can manage and appropriate for the level of sophistication of the Nigerian economy and social development in comparison with advanced economies like that of the United States that has sixteen security and intelligence-affiliated agencies.
By the design of the Nigerian security institutional architecture, there is provision for institutional interagency collaboration and cooperation essentially through the office of the National Security Adviser to the President of the nation. The ONSA came into being in June 1986 when the National Security Organization (NSO) was dissolved by Ibrahim Babangida military regime. In its place three new intelligence agencies were created namely: National Security Agency (NSA – the main external espionage agency), the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA, devoted to collection of intelligence on defence or military matters especially from external sources), and State Security Service (SSS or DSS as it later became popularly known – the main secret police for counter-intelligence within the country). The ONSA was added as a coordinating body for the security and intelligence agencies.
The ONSA is the clearing house and the NSA himself is the titular “Coordinator” of all the security agencies essentially by receiving periodic reports from them, processing same and on the basis of this, advise the President appropriately periodically, if not on daily basis. Nonetheless, the ONSA has gone through its own evolution having been subjected to different experiences brought about by different governments/administrations in the country.
However, the main problem with each of the security agencies has more to do with internal governance structure set up to tackle security challenges as they arise from time to time. For instance, if how, when and where the resources allocated to the security agencies in form of annual budgetary allocations are judiciously applied, this would go a long way to helping the security agents to perform their individual duties efficiently and optimally without compromising on the moral and ethical requirements.
Unfortunately, such judicious application of budgetary resources has always been queried as evident in the various scandals that have come to dog the pathways of the security agencies individually and/or collectively over the years.
There is no doubt that reform advocacy has been met with bureaucratic resistance principally because of fear of erosion of perks and privileges already ossified in the extant structures. Thus for such a reform to succeed, a top-down approach must be adopted i.e. the reform must be ordered and instituted from the very top hierarchy of power in the country. In short, it must be ordered by the President.
Then there is the geopolitical factor. Observers and analysts have not failed to notice as a matter of fact that even though the nation’s security sector leadership is preponderantly dominated by elements of Northern ethnic origin, there is high level of insecurity in the country and high fatality rate especially in the same Northern region. This is said without any form of prejudice. It is a statement of fact, no matter how it is taken, interpreted or taste in the mouth. In short, there is no peace, social and ethnic harmony in the country. These are some of the issues that cannot be wished away under any pretence or pretext.
It has not gone unnoticed that both the Federal Government and the private sector have called and held security summits in the last few years to address substantive issues involved in security challenges facing the nation. The take-away from these summits are that nothing really has been taken away in terms of lessons learnt or not learnt. These summits addressed security challenges quite alright. But they did not address the fundamental issues relating to capability and readiness of the security agencies to defeat security threats, challenges, etc – something that speaks directly to the imperative of reform of the security sector itself.
It is not just a matter of getting more funding, equipment and/or training. These are without doubt part of the entire framework of the reform which necessarily include restructuring of the internal governance structures of the individual security agencies – a prerequisite for increasing their capability and optimal performance, increasing or upgrading their level of understanding of the fundamental substantive issues of modern security system, threats, risks and challenges in the context of our geopolitical reality.
Frederic Grare, writing on Pakistani transitional democracy underscored this necessity of reforms of the security sector. “The reform of the intelligence agencies is therefore imperative, and the depoliticization of the intelligence process is as much an element of national reconciliation as of consolidation of power” (Grare, F: Reforming the Intelligence Agencies in Pakistan’s Transitional Democracy, Washington DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009, p. 4)
“Reforming the intelligence agencies is not exclusively a legal and constitutional issue…
“Nor is reform a matter of organizational restructuring. Reform should start with “clarifying the philosophy, and redefining the mission, focus and priorities of intelligence in order to establish a new culture of intelligence. Reforming the intelligence agencies therefore requires not only a change in the state, but a change in the state of mind of the actors involved. It must be understood in the larger context of civil-military relations.
“As a consequence, redefining the role of intelligence agencies inevitably has far-reaching political implications. Intelligence agencies are always primarily an expression of the fundamental character of the state. …Reasserting civilian control is therefore both the condition and the consequence of a true and lasting democratization process.
“Reforming the intelligence agencies to make them accountable to civilian governments is indeed complex. Overall, ‘the objective is that…intelligence agencies should be insulated from political abuse without being isolated from executive power’. But several categories of difficulties can be identified at this stage (Ibid, p.6).
- “As asserted by Gregory Weeks, “intelligence reform is difficult because it involves the coordination of multiple intelligence agencies, specification of authority between the military and the executive, legislative and judicial branches, restructuring, all within the context of promoting national security while assuring human rights (Ibid, p. 6-7)
- ….The question of democratic control of the intelligence agencies is a matter of accountability and orientation, not professional skill. The direction of these organizations has had much less to do with their official primary concerns than with the domestic interests of the ruling elite, in which case reform is imperative…
- Intelligence reforms take place in a context where reform depends on the strength of a political body whose weakening is a top priority of the military. (Ibid, p. 7)
- But the security context is not the only obstacle to better control of the intelligence agencies. The relationship of the intelligence agencies to democracy is almost always uneasy owing to the nature of their activities. One explanation is the lack of transparency regarding the objectives of the agencies; but the situation is further complicated by the restriction of information about any given operation to a small number of officials, the lack of formal procedures for an operation’s approval, and the lack of records on the agencies’ activities, among other things. The means of controlling the agencies’ activities are almost always indirect, such as the approval of budgets, political responsibility for nominations of intelligence officials to key executive positions, and in some countries, a posteriori control of some operations. Although no intelligence agency operates outside a minimal legal framework…and consequently the intelligence agencies, retain a high level of autonomy.
- Ultimately, reforming the intelligence services will result only from changes within them to accommodate the new democratic situation. According to Gregory Weeks, “efforts should aim at strict compliance with the constitutional order and specific legislation over the intelligence agencies’ but given the nature of agencies’ activities, the means to enforce this compliance will have to be found in the vigilance of society as a whole as much as in the legal framework designed to control them.” (Ibid, p. 8).
An epochal reform of the United States’ intelligence community took place after the 9/11 attack on the United States by Al Qae’da. The US Government set up 9/11 Commission to examine the immediate and remote causes of the attack and the response of the intelligence community to the attack, etc.
One of the key outcomes of the Commission Report (this writer has the electronic copy of the full report) was the Intelligence Reform Act and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 which was the legislative response to the Commission’s Report. (It is apposite to note the similar title of Nigeria’s Terrorism Prevention Act of 2011/2013 as amended).
Richard Posner, a federal circuit judge and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School then, made a compelling case for what he called the US domestic intelligence of which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the lead agency and which was the focus of the case study. “The magnitude of the terrorist threat to the United States, coupled with the lack of coordination among domestic intelligence agencies and the continuing failure of the lead agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to develop an adequate domestic intelligence capability, argues compellingly for reform” (Posner, R.: Remaking Domestic Intelligence, Stanford, Hoover Institution Press Publication No 541, 2005, p. vii)
Per Laegried and Synnove Serigstad also provide insights into how the methodologies of the reforms citing Norway as a case study. “How to balance coordination, specialization, autonomy and control is an enduring problem both in organizational theory and in administrative practice. The trade-offs between different forms of coordination and specialization, as well as between political control and agency autonomy, are often unstable and vary over time according to the popularity of different administrative doctrines and also between countries and policy areas” (Per Laegried and Synnove Serigstad: “Organizing for Homeland Security: The Case of Norway”, Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies,Working Paper 12, November 2004, p. 7)
“Organizations involved in homeland security must by definition be high reliability organizations in which there is zero tolerance for mistakes. At the same time, coordination is a basic challenge and always a central issue in the work of the homeland security bodies….
There may be several explanations for this, the most obvious being that homeland security work is by nature a fragmented, complex and disjointed area. Homeland security covers everything from preparation for a terrorist attack, emergency measures in the event of natural disasters or of infections and pandemics, dealing with major accidents in industry and transportation or power outages and accommodating floods of refugees to product control, ICT, telecommunications, ABC weapons, intelligence and surveillance and potentially involves almost all areas of public sector. In addition, the unpredictable nature of the field obviously makes retrospective learning much easier than learning in advance. Changes, implementation and improvement are reactive in character, which in turn, causes considerable diffusion of responsibility between ministries, agencies and other public and private bodies. The field of homeland security represents intergovernmental complexities and dilemmas along both vertical and horizontal axes (p. 8-9)
“At its core, coordination implies building effective routines to produce effective, efficient solutions to complex, recurring problems. In the case of homeland security the traditional problems of organizational coordination are multiplied enormously and the stakes associated with success or failure vastly raised. The central question becomes how to build effective responses to problems that are newer routine and to which systems, therefore, have no standard responses (P. 9).
“Summing up, the organization of homeland security constitutes a double balancing act because it requires coordination between ministries and agencies and between substantive policy areas and he security field. A substantial democratic dilemma is how regulatory agencies can have enough autonomy to function efficiently but not so much that they become politically uncontrollable. Another dilemma is how responsibility for security matters can be integrated into substantive policy areas without being neglected or relegated to a low-priority issue (p. 10)
The Nigerian security agencies are long overdue for wholesale reforms that will put them on modern pedestal for fighting crimes and all forms of security challenges. Their individual mandates should be reviewed in light of modern developments, their internal governance structures or mechanisms should be overhauled and reformed appropriately. Most important they should be re-oriented towards protection of the citizens within the context of their fundamental human rights and political democratic values. In short, they need new ethics and ethos embracing respect for human rights of the citizens, democratic values and combat readiness. They should free themselves from corrupt practices that have come to characterized and stigmatized their histories.
Interagency Cooperation or Competition
Interagency cooperation is not a rule cast in stone. It is not a Golden Rule but a rule of the thumb that has emerged as a result of multiplicity of security challenges in modern times.
Interagency cooperation cannot be legislated upon either. It can only be inferred and referenced from similarities of mandates and modus operandi of the security agencies themselves. Experience and information can be shared without eroding individual mandates. Indeed, sharing of experiences and information is the locus of interagency cooperation. Nothing else! The individual security agencies are units of power within the overall power bloc that is known as the Federal Government.
It must be acknowledged that the creation of the Office of National Security Adviser in June 1986 as the chief coordinator of the security agencies was a welcome development by itself. But getting national security agencies to cooperate with the ONSA is a different matter entirely, indeed a herculean task, which in practice almost make it a redundant office. The ONSA itself has never also been reviewed whether it is fulfilling its mandate or not, whether its internal structures and procedures are in tune with modern requirements or not. There is no known legislative oversight supervision of the ONSA or whether there is even need for such an oversight supervision since it functions exclusively within the executive branch under the Presidency or not.
But one would have thought that such a review is necessary and would be carried out by the current administration given the experience with the former occupant of the ONSA who is still in detention till date for the past four years. But such a review has not been forthcoming. The current occupant of the ONSA is often seen and considered in strategic quarters as a paper tiger with little influence on the shape and course of national security events because it has been made irrelevant in the national security architecture. The occupant of the ONSA is seen but not heard anymore.
In this loose arrangement, the ONSA is not a superior body. The NSA cannot query any of the head of the security and intelligence agencies because they do not report to him in any manner whatsoever but directly to the President or through upper echelon bodies such as the office of the Chief of Defence Staff or through the Minister of Police Affairs. The ONSA is not a superior vertical body. Rather, it is a horizontal body that is even considered in some quarters inferior to the service chiefs, for instance. Therefore, the requirement of submitting report to the NSA cannot be construed, strict sensu, a legal requirement but an administrative procedure or process. That is perhaps one of the reasons why the heads of the security agencies individually and/or collectively do not respect the ONSA, the NSA himself; and even consider the administrative procedure a nuisance since they have direct access to the President either in an emergency situation or in the ordinary course of events.
But there are other observable anomalies in the administrative procedure adopted for the ONSA. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is always a four-star Army General or its equivalent and also receives reports from the service chiefs. He cannot render the same reports to the ONSA who is occupied by a lower-ranking officer. The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Chief of Air Staff (CAS) and Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) are mostly often held by a Lieutenant General or its equivalent in the Air Force and Navy. It is considered very awkward if not insulting for them to go and report to a Major General (and who has retired) or a lower-ranking officer. Likewise, the Inspector General of Police is equivalent of a four-star General. It is considered a slap in the face when he is required by an “administrative procedure” to report to a Major General or much lower ranking officer serving as the NSA.
This writer had the privilege of meeting and interacting with a former Inspector General of Police sometime this year. I asked him publicly: what is the problem with interagency cooperation among the security agencies? Ego, he answered unequivocally. No IGP, COAS, etc, want to report to any NSA, answer his call or anything when they have direct access to the President. He implied that the system is administrative which they are not bound to comply with or respect; and nobody is going to query or crucify them for not obeying it. So the ONSA is always on its own because he can easily be by-passed at will without any adverse consequence either on their jobs or career paths.
This was part of the problems encountered during the time retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki served as the National Security Adviser. It was rumoured, a claim that could not be substantiated by this writer, that retired Lt General Azubuike Ihejirika, the former Chief of Army Staff, never reported to the NSA throughout his tenure as COAS.
During the times of Jonathan administration (2010-2015) the ONSA was perceived to have grown too powerful, commanding a lot of political clout within the security sector. However, President Goodluck Jonathan did not hesitate to wield the big axe of hire and fire. Immediately he became President in May 2010, he fired retired Major General Mukhtar Sarki Mukhtar, for his alleged “ignoble” role he played in bringing back to the country late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from Saudi Arabia in February 2010. President Jonathan subsequently appointed retired Lt. General Andrew Owoye Azazi (who later died in a helicopter crash alongside Governor of Kaduna State, Patrick Yakowa in Bayelsa State during the burial ceremony of the father of Oronto Douglas), the first time a Southerner would occupy the ONSA. President Jonathan later relieved Azazi of the post in June 2012 and appointed retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki who served till 2015. It was credited to Dasuki for strengthening the ONSA. Unfortunately, Dasuki was arrested, detained and charged with allegations of corrupt practices and illegal possession of firearms by the new administration under President Muhammadu Buhari. Dasuki was arrested in July 2015 and has not been released till date even after the court has granted him bails several times. It is the thinking in the strategic quarters that President Muhammadu Buhari was not too comfortable with a powerful ONSA, and that was partly the reason for a weakened ONSA observable under the current NSA, retired Major General Alli Monguno, and the reason for much weaker or tardy coordination of the security agencies in the last four years.
While there is visible vertical control of the security agencies in terms of hire and fire by the President, there is lack of horizontal control over them especially by the National Assembly. The security agencies hardly obey judicial decisions, and public opinions represented by non-governmental organizations hardly impact positively on their activities. For instance, there have been litanies of cases of blatant refusal to answer the summons or calls of the National Assembly by the heads of the security agencies. There have also been cases of failure to appear in courts over one form of litigation against them or the other.
Between the Devil and the deep Blue Sea
The dominant general public opinion is that while the security agencies are needed for the safety of lives and properties, they are also seen as lawless entities because they considered themselves above the law in their worldviews, behaviours or actions. That is why they act arrogantly towards the civilian populace, demanding instant respect where they have given nothing back to the society in reciprocity.
This is the situation in which the country finds itself with her own security agencies, caught between the Devil and the deep Blue Sea, between Scylla and the Charybdis!
The problems of the security agencies are deep and we can only dig to get to the roots. It has to do with worldviews, mindsets and culture cultivated over the years that they are not willing to change even in the face of such a necessity because they have built their empires of career, perks and privileges over them. They have individually built bureaucracies, stove-pipes and fiefdoms on this vast empire. They have become conservative, reactionary and lawless, and ever ready to suppress any “radical” view that may or can threaten the status quo or their citadel of power. They have developed their own sub-system within the larger eco-system of public service to the nation.
There have been little structural changes in the civil-military relations over the years. The relationship is still characterized by overt and covert hostility. The civilian populace regard the military as “mad dogs” while the military in turn regard the civilian populace as “bloody civilians”. In this type of charged atmosphere there can be mutual trust as each other regard the other as necessary evil.
After the transition to civil rule in May 1999, Nigerians naturally heaved a sigh of relief that the military would now permanently return and stay in the barrack; and that we would no longer have “mad dogs” running wild on the streets.
Unfortunately, this was not to be the case as one incident after the other successfully pulled back the military from the barracks to the streets in a chain of events mainly having to do with escalation of insecurity across the country.
The consequences have been unfortunate loss of lives both civilians and soldiers, including police men and destruction of properties on a scale that cannot be easily quantified on economic scale. International human rights organizations, notably Amnesty International, have accused the Nigerian military of wanton disregard for human rights, that it lacks the responsibility to protect in the war zones of the North east where Boko Haram terrorism and insurgency are still raging.
But what cannot be denied is that while Boko Haram insurgency has been exclusively left for the military to deal with, there has been no total victory even with the involvement of soldiers from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin Republics, even with assistance from one degree to another by other friendly countries.
Significantly, the military returned not only to the battle field of terrorism and insurgency (something it was not initially trained for) mounted by Boko Haram against the Nigerian State starting in July 2009, it also returned to road checkpoints where many unsavoury events have taken place.
Most tragic is the fact that even with their now-permanent presence in the nation’s daily life, especially on the roads, lives and properties are still unsafe as ever with evident statistical increase in the rate of criminal activities across the length and breadth of the country including high fatality rate as a result of killing by soldiers. Armed robberies, kidnapping, killings by Fulani herdsmen and other marauders (not to talk of Boko Haram campaign of terror and insurgency in the North East) have been on the increase – with the military either looking helpless or confused.
The worse part of the whole sordid situation lies in the current civilian-military relationship. The military is largely held responsible for the current quagmire in which the nation find itself from which it is yet to extricate itself. The many decades of military rule has plunged the nation into grave misfortune – something which the military has not accepted on moral ground. Yet the military bequeathed the security sector institutions to the civilian rulers, institutions that have never been tinkered with in form of reform since they were established more than 40 years ago.
In addition, the military is seen as a necessary evil with its return back to the streets because while on the one hand it acted as a check on the increasing criminal activities in the country (we must not lose sight of this for any prejudicial reason), their excesses (even to the point of becoming an extractive institution, i.e. collecting bribes on the roads like the police) have tainted their image as the main protector of the civil populace on the other hand.
While not overstating the overall benefits of the security agencies within their mandates (looking at the bigger picture) there have been instances where the security agencies are justifiably perceived to have contributed to insecurity of lives and properties in the country with the concomitant egregious violation of fundamental human rights of the citizens which can be summed up as corpus of illegalities that evidently fall outside their mandates. There have been flashpoints and blind spots in the legal roles of the security agencies have been compromised and impaired by their own actions or inactions.
Life has become cheap, unusually short, made nasty and brutish by the Hobbesian regression into a state of nature, into solitary wilderness.
It is, therefore, a great burden of a nation when its security agencies dysfunction or malfunction, have no respect for the fundamental human rights they are set up to protect; behave like hooligans; and only their uniforms distinguishes them from criminals and hoodlums.
Conclusion
What has happened justifiably raises concern at higher level of scientific cognition into what might be wrong fundamentally with our security agencies the way they are presently constituted. It is a further evidence o what has long been suspected to be part of the terrible general malaise pervading the rank and file of the military, including other security agencies: a worrisome compromise on professional ethics, the impunity involved and the gross inability to tackling this monster. Often times, this kind of incident is quickly swept under the carpet and quickly forgotten in the public consciousness. Only societal alertness and the unrelenting quest for justice can help to avert the terrible disaster that is looming on the horizon along this path.
The military has hitherto been suspected and accused publicly and privately that it is colluding with “enemies” of the country to prolong the Boko Haram insurgency for pecuniary gains – falling within the framework of corrupt practices that have come to pervade every facet of national life.
But the situation does not stop at this.
The corrupt practices pervade the entire hierarchy of the military from one degree to another. Society is only aware of these cases that got out of hands and as exposed by the media. As unpalatable as this may seem, it is generally agreed that it is the reality that we are all forced to live with whether conscious of it or not.
In short, there is no accountability and transparency when it comes to financial management within the military establishment, provocative or sad as this may sound.
The corollary is the fact that despite the loud noise and commotion about anti-corruption crusade under the Buhari administration, the military has largely remain untouched even with a long pole because, rightly or wrongly, it is reasoned that it would be strategically unwise or too dangerous for this administration to probe the military. To do so would be tantamount to stretching one’s “cock” too far and is a sure superhighway to committing suicide publicly as the “cock” stands the risk of circumcision in a village manner that is considered unhealthy. The implication is that it is better to let sleeping “mad dog” lies!
The reform being advocated here must first start with challenging/confronting and reviewing the very mandates of the individual security agencies, whether they are adequate for the times we are in or not – i.e. in view of the changed security landscape globally, regionally and nationally.
Second, with the review of such mandates, the new mandates must be based on set of core values serving as the philosophical foundation of our security system, values that we share in common as Nigerian citizens for peaceful coexistence. While it is admitted constitutionally that the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the citizens, the new mandates must show how the individual security agencies would contribute to how to achieve the stated constitutional objectives because ultimately the security agencies are the protector of the security and welfare (properties) of the citizens.
Third, the security agencies must be subjected to a rigorous evaluation or performance assessment based on strict objective criteria.
In short, the reform calls for deep soul-searching of how we have failed ourselves and how we can now start a new beginning based on honesty and fitness of purpose as a nation and as a people. The reform should be seen as part of the restructuring that many Nigerians have been calling for in the last several years.