Days after admonishing service chiefs to work in synergy and collaboratively in their assigned duties, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has come out, again, to charge the nation’s security apparatus to keep their eyes on the ball as they carry on with the challenge of providing adequate security for lives and property in Nigeria.
At that meeting with the heads of the services, he made it clear that his administration will not tolerate the observed inter-agency wranglings that marred the war on terror in the last administration of Muhammadu Buhari. That unfortunate development left Nigerians at the mercy of criminal elements – kidnappers, bandits, terrorists and other street urchins who took advantage of the near absence of dependable security check to unleash mayhem on the people making life and living a hellish experience.
At a more recent outing, the President also stressed the relevance of actionable intelligence in any security operation. While highlighting the necessity of information and intelligence sharing among the security agencies, he maintained that hoarding such essential and valuable resource is counterproductive and can jeopardise the efforts to rid the nation of terrorism and other acts of criminality.
This newspaper recalls that at one of its meetings with journalists, the Directorate of State Services (DSS), in reaction to the ease with which criminals were carrying out their nefarious activities, made an assertion that other security agencies were not able to controvert. The specific issue had to do with the abduction of school children. DSS made it clear that the state governments concerned and the relevant security agencies could not say that they were not provided with intelligence that would have stopped the criminals in their track. Even the former Niger State Governor complained openly about the sabotage of intelligence at his disposal by some unscrupulous government officials who were alleged to be working hand in glove with those ‘bad guys.’
On the part of this newspaper, severally, on this page, we have urged the government and its security agencies to invest more resources, human and especially, technology, in intelligence gathering, synthesizing information gathered, making them actionable as well as putting them at the disposal of those who need them for an effective security operation. That President Tinubu is complaining about this lacuna is proof that a lot is yet to be done to bolster the security system and make it as effective and efficient as it should be.
However, we are persuaded to posit that the challenge is not just that of absence or failure of intelligence. It is not, also, that intelligence was not generated and made available. The major problem was and still is multi-faceted. And they include, lack of collaborative effort, betrayal of sources, sabotage, inter-agency rivalry and criminally down-playing the urgency of the intelligence gathered and, in some instances, out rightly ignoring such vital information.
There is an unbelievable prevalence of mutual suspicion among the agencies on matters of modalities of operation and how to effectively use the information available to achieve a desirable result that is capable of securing the nation and the people. The danger in this senseless inter and, at times, intra agency bickering is that it exposes the security apparatchik to manipulation by lackeys of mischief within the services themselves.
What is required at this point is a dramatic change of attitude on the part of those whose duty it is to ensure the security that is desperately needed in the country without which not much can be achieved in terms of political and socio-economic advancement.
It is sad to point out that the insistence of every security agency on having their own full complement of intelligence apparatus is, without doubt, wasteful. It is even more disturbing that the agencies, in a rabid and reckless quest for superiority, fail to see the harm their squabbles are causing the nation by not sharing information.
As the President rightly said, you cannot have a disharmony in a concert and still call it a concert. In line with international best practices, there exists what is known as Intelligence Community. It is there to filter information that will benefit all and avoid errors that can be tragic. Most nations share intelligence on critical security matters as a deliberate effort to make the world safer. Despite their ideological differences and divergent political interests, the major powers know where to draw the line and cooperate.
In like manner, we canvass a compelling argument to the effect that the nation’s security agencies must pull their resources together and present a common front in the fight against insecurity in the country. Nigerians are not interested in which agency cleared kidnappers and bandits off their psyche. For them, the major concern is to be able to sleep with two eyes closed, send their wards to school and not worry about their safety, embark on a journey and not be afraid of arriving at their destination safe and sound.
What is urgently needed, in our opinion, is cooperation between the security agencies and critical stakeholders. There must be a concerted, confidence-building drive that can enable those with information to give them without apprehension about betrayal and or sabotage. Similarly, the President should be ready to back up his words with action if the nation must be safe and secure.
