The Mayor of Urhoboland and a Niger Delta ex-militant leader, Eshanakpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro has congratulated the newly appointed National Security Adviser to the President, Nuhu Ribadu, describing his appointment as a round peg in a round hole.
The former warlord expressed hope that with his appointment, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is on the path of national recovery.
He stated this in Ughelli, the headquarters of Ughelli North Local Government Area, Delta State, Tuesday on the sideline of the activities organised by stakeholders in the Niger Delta region ushering in President Tinubu’s presidency.
According to him, Ribadu is a top-notch in security matters, a feat he demonstrated during his tenure as the Chairman of Nigeria’s anti graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He recalled that Ribadu, while he was EFCC Chairman gave teeth to the war on corruption and built an image of integrity and impeccable platform which the commission stood for a long time noting that till date, not even the enemies of the anti graft czar could pin him to any misdeeds while he held sway.
With scientific exactitude, the Mayor noted that the newly appointed NSA demonstrated in the past his vast aptitude in intelligence gathering and management of same saying the office of the NSA requires a Ribadu who has the wherewithal to lead an office where intelligence gathering is their preoccupation.
The President, the Urhobo-born Mayor noted, has appointed the best man for the job as he called on the office of the NSA to ensure Nigeria is safe particularly those regions he described as volatile while calling on other security agencies to work with the NSA to build a new security architecture that will ensure national security.
He said Nigeria as a nation has suffered setbacks in the past decades from invasion of criminal elements from the sahel region into the country, fomenting troubles and the success of such invasions he said draws a map of failure of intelligence gathering.
He advised the NSA to immediately open a vista for community based policing of the Nigerian boarders to support what the conventional security apparatus are doing and also extend same to ‘recalcitrant’ communities for workable intelligence.
“With the benefit of the hindsight, I call on the NSA to strengthen the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Amnesty Programme for the agency to achieve its lofty goals. There are growing needs for that office to be breathed life into. It’s an agency being manned by those who know next to nothing about the ex-militants’ affairs. Appointees of that office should be made to realise the goals of the government. I suggest the government appoints an ex-militant leader to take charge of that agency. A man who knows nitty gritty of the politics of the programme, with knowledge of all ex-militants and can deal with all dispassionately.
Enough of trial and luck. We need a former warrior to change the narratives of the agency,” he said.
He calls for the inclusion of ex-militants in matters of security, noting that as a people, it is time to tow the lines of Western world in security matter.