Nigeria is fast falling into the league of lawless countries like Somalia and Lebanon just as it was predicted by a US Think-Tank about a dozen years ago and updated in 2010. Our country can be described as a ‘failed state’ by whatever indices one uses because human life isn’t valuable anymore. Since the advent of this democratic dispensation, the country has witnessed uncountable number of communal violence leading to the lost of incalculable number of lives and unquantifiable property destruction. From the activities of the Ooduwa Peoples Congress (OPC) in the South West, the Egbesu and Bakassi Boys in the South East, the MEND and its affiliates in the South South and now the Boko Haram in the North. It appears violence is about the only thing that respects the Constitutional provision of federal character. Unfortunately governments, overtime seem to be comfortable with the way things are unfolding.
With several security agencies and multiple intelligence services, one is baffled at the failure to get to the root of the psychosis sweeping the country. In an ideal country, the State Secret Service (SSS) should have been the primary agency for gathering and analysing information that will assist in nipping such attacks in the bud. But alas, the agency appears to be losing relevance and playing second fiddle to other sister intelligence organisations. The occasional press conferences or releases by the garrulous Marilyn Ogar are about the only reminder that the organisation exists. They are in the news for negative reasons most often than not.
The failures of the SSS in intelligence gathering and analysis may be attributable to the calibre of personnel running the organisation. Given that so many senior, well trained officers were sacked to enthrone the current management, the reasons which are now becoming clear, it is no surprise you see the agency working at cross purposes with other intelligence gathering/ analysing agencies. The Agency is now fast turning in to the enforcement arm of a government that has lost credibility with the people and don’t really care what Nigerians think about them. An instance of the new thinking and new way of doing things in the organisation can be gleaned in the detention of Mallam Nasiru El-Rufa’i in his hotel room in Awka, the Anambra state capital and the “invitation” extended to Dr. Junaid Mohammed. El-Rufa’i, the Deputy National Secretary of the All Peoples Congress (APC) was in Awka to monitor the gubernatorial elections for his party. Heavily armed SSS officers were deployed to stop him, forcefully if need be, from leaving the hotel. Of all the shitty excuses given by the service for its behaviour was that it was protecting El-Rufa’i. What Nigerians were not told was how restricting his movements thereby curtailing his freedom of movement, serve as protection. We were also not told what or from whom El-Rufa’i was protected from.
The SSS, a service largely known for its stealth activities and efficiency, has constantly been in the news for the wrong reasons in the past two years or so. The drama with one of its operatives, Ali Tishaku, who was ostensibly “embedded” into the Boko Haram sect easily come to mind. While Nigerians are yet to digest the shoddy manner Tishaku’s case was handled, the service stumbled from one scandal to another in succession. We have seen the service embroiled in suspects recycling allegation levelled against it by the Edo State government and wasn’t satisfactorily addressed. Then we began seeing one arrest after another without prosecution beginning with Senator Ali Ndume and many other “high profile” suspects. Also Nigerians began seeing Marilyn Ogar, the service’s spokesman defending one accused after another – people caught in the act. The service soon became the advocate of anyone caught in the act of committing any act of terrorism – the likes of John Akpavu of the Radio House fame.
The service is now looking more like the enforcement arm of the PDP, with anyone who the president or the PDP don’t like his face most likely going to find himself a guest of the service. The “invitation” of Dr. Junaid Mohammed by the service is a case in point. Dr. Mohammed was “invited” for allegedly saying Nigeria will not know peace if Goodluck Jonathan seek to contest in 2015. I cannot remember the SSS inviting Asari Dokubo or Edwin Clark for saying worse than what Dr. Junaid Mohammed was purported to have said which warranted his invitation. The shoddy manner the service is being steered can be located in the politicisation and “sectionalisation” of such a specialised and sensitive agency. A lot of officers that the service spent a lot of resources to train are kicked out from the agency mainly because of their geographical origin.
Though many people have commented on how our security agencies are ran in the recent past, the SSS appear to have taken the cake. The organisation has been effectively sectionalised, whether we like it or not. Its recent actions points to an organisation that is groping in the dark trying to justify its faux pas day by day. We have seen the disconnect between the SSS and the Nigeria Police in the case of John Akpaveu, the man arrested by the Police at the Radio House with hand grenades in the middle of Ministerial briefings. While the Police, who arrested Akpavu and who should know, announced that what was in the possession of Akpavu were hand grenades, the SSS through its spokesman, Marilyn Ogar, claimed Akpavu was arrested with expired smoke canisters. Whatever he was arrested with, I don’t believe it behoves the SSS to defend Akpavu. Then in May this year, while widows and orphans were bereaving the lost of husbands and fathers, the Director General of the SSS announced in his Church that the murderers are forgiven. In a thousand years, I cannot comprehend what informed such a pronouncement. I don’t know whether the DG has realised the kind of message he sent to any would-be killer out there.
Sometimes in April last year I read a news item in the Daily Trust newspaper to the effect that a Deputy Director of the organisation had his appointment terminated because his orderly lost his rifle and side arm to robbers along the Zaria – Kano road in the night. Four months later, it was reported in the same Daily Trust in August of the same year, that Ali Kwara, the famed robbers’ hunter, has recovered the said arms from robbers he arrested in Kano. I thought the Deputy Director’s case would be reviewed seeing that the arms are recovered and may be reprimanded instead of being prematurely retired. Taking into account the man-hours and resources expended in training someone to this level, I thought the service would hesitate before doing away with his level of competence and expertise. But this is just a tip of the iceberg of how nepotistic the service has become. Such attitude is negatively affecting staff morale and by extension service delivery.
The attack on military formations in Maiduguri by suspected insurgents, which crippled the operational capacity of the Airforce Base in the town, may have been avoided if the SSS are up and doing. The lack of timely intelligence on the movement of the insurgents gave them the element of surprise to scale the perimeter fence of the Base and launch their attacks, successful or otherwise. The episode is not only embarrassment but a statement of intelligence failure. How can such a large number of people more freely with heavy armour in a state that is effectively under military occupation – state of emergency without anybody being the wiser? The reports from security sources is that the attckers move in a convoy of ‘at least 20 Hilux pick-ups” to reach the Base. Why were they not intercepted? We are yet to see the military ‘parade’ the vehicles recovered from the 24 attackers purportedly killed. Maiduguri is not a border town as we all know before we are given the usual story of escaping into neighbouring countries.
Commanders of military formations in Jaji – Major General I. D. Isah and Air Vice Marshall Kure – at the time of the twin bombings in Jaji were promptly relieved of their Commands in the aftermath of the bobings but Nigerians are yet to hear what becomes of the Airbase Commander in Maiduguri and the State Director of the SSS.
The primary counter intelligence agency, the SSS, whose counterparts are the American FBI and the British MI6, is failing in providing pinpoint intelligence required by the military and civilians. This can be seen in the unfortunate killing of innocent squatters in Apo by the military that acted on information provided by the SSS. In allowing itself to be used as the government’s battering ram, the service is shirking its responsibilities of protecting the citizenry and endangering our lives.
The way its personnel are treated leaves a bad taste in the mouth and this will beget disloyalty and a feeling of dejection by the employees, thereby leading to a lackadaisical approach to work. While those still in active service are shunted aside, contract staff are engaged to provide services that should otherwise be done by people on the Service’s payroll. Much as I am not an intelligence officer, I don’t believe this is the best way to run intelligence-based service. We have seen how terrorists from the swamps of the Niger Delta to the deserts of the North Eastern states hold the people to ransom for over five years without any end in sight. The curtailment of the maleficent destruction of lives and property may not solely be tied to the provision of timely, efficient and quality intelligence on the terrorists, but it would go along way in pre-empting them thereby saving many families of burying their family members prematurely.
This, in my opinion, should be the main preoccupation of the service and not being the PDP or the Presidency’s muscle man.
