With the return of Lt. General Aliyu Gusau (retd) as the National Security Adviser (NSA), the final nail in the coffin of the ambition of former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd) to become the country’s president in 2011, may have been driven home.

P.M.NEWS authoritatively gathered that the reappointment of General Gusau as the NSA yesterday by the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, was aimed at two objectives: to stabilise the Jonathan administration and pave way for Gusau, the respected intelligence chief, to become the country’s president in 2011.

To become the new NSA, Gusau was said to have upstaged the former Army Chief, Gen. Patrick Aziza and IBB pointsman Brigadier General Halilu Akilu (retd). Top sources in Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, the nation’s seat of power, this morning disclosed that IBB had proposed Akilu to Jonathan as NSA to pave way for his plan to contest the 2011 Presidency but this was rejected by Jonathan and some Abuja-based Northern power brokers, who felt that the gap-toothed general from Minna did not possess the integrity to lead the nation again.

They buttressed their position with the fact that it was IBB who plunged the nation into turmoil with his annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, described by many as the freest and fairest election ever held in the history of Nigeria.

With the appointment of Gusau as the new NSA, it will not be a surprise if he becomes the Vice President after ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua, who is still incommunicado, is declared incapacitated and impeached by the National Assembly.

“Don’t be surprised if you see Col. Kayode Are brought back as the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS) to balance the political equation,” the source added.

Gusau, a well respected intelligence chief, was appointed NSA in 1999 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and left in 2006 to contest the 2007 Presidential election.

The new NSA has never hidden his desire to rule the country.

He was the Director of Army Intelligence during the Second Republic and was later appointed Director of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) by General Muhammadu Buhari (retd).

Gusau was credited with the reorganisation and modernisation of the country’s intelligence apparatus in 1985. He later became the Chief of Army Staff in September, 1993 and left three months later.

Authoritative sources in Aso Rock confirmed that with Gusau’s reappointment as the NSA, Gusau is being positioned to become the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2011 election.

Gusau, it was further learnt, was the one who advised the father of Nigeria al-Qaeda terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab, accused of attempting to blow up an American jetliner on 25 December, 2009, to report his son to the American authorities, before he was arrested in U.S.

In 2006, The News magazine had exclusively reported Gusau’s plan to rule Nigeria. A day after the magazine hit the streets, Obasanjo removed Gusau as National Security Adviser in 2006.

It was then that he and joined the Presidential race under the platform of PDP.

He was, however, frustrated by Obasanjo who hand-picked the sickly Yar’Adua as PDP candidate who eventually became president of the country in 2007.