Insecurity and task before new DSS boss

For many years now, Nigeria has been grappling with security challenges, which have affected the socio-economic and political ecosystem across the country. From South-East to North-Central, South-West to North East and South-South to North-West, the country has been confronted with kidnapping, banditry, insurgency, herdsmen’s attacks, militancy, separatist agitation and sundry crimes. These security challenges have hampered economic development and affected food security.

 

 

It was on the restoration of security that former President Muhammadu Buhari anchored his electioneering against an incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, in 2015. At a time when Boko Haram was a big threat in the northern part of the country, as the Jonathan government was winding down, amid allegation that it was politically motivated, Nigerians had hoped that the coming to power of Buhari, a retired Army General, would bring about respite and an end to insecurity. Shockingly, security challenges intensified, despite the then government’s propaganda of “decimating” Boko Haram. Bandits, insurgents and criminal herdsmen ran riot in the North-West, North East and North-Central geopolitical zones respectively, to the extent that they occupied territories and acquired enough firepower to confidently confront security operatives at will.

In the last couple of years, criminals have run roughshod across the country. Schoolchildren have been kidnapped from their school premises and on the road while travelling in vehicles. Communities have been sacked and villagers massacred. Prominent people and their family members as well as others have been abducted on the road or from their homes. Security agents have been fatally attacked and brutally murdered. Herdsmen have invaded communities and wreaked havoc. Fears pervade the nation and its people. Foreign countries have had to issue security alerts, warning their citizens to avoid traveling to certain places in  Nigeria. This was the state that President Buhari left Nigeria in May 2023, when his tenure of office ended.

Under President Bola Tinubu, security challenges have not abated. Banditry, insurgency, kidnapping, separatist agitation, and other unsettling activities often occur across the country. The government has made efforts to change the narratives, employing some measures that are both orthodox and unorthodox. Insurgents, bandits, and kidnappers have faced onslaughts, although the outcomes are not celebrated in the press. The government has also extended an olive branch to bandits and insurgents, asking them to surrender and enjoy amnesty. The cooperation of those who surrender helps the government in the effort to neutralise the adamant criminals, while the repentant ones are rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, even though many Nigerians are uncomfortable with such tactics.

Also, as part of measures to strengthen the security apparati, the government had had to change the leadership of the military arms, appointing new service chiefs and striving to equip the military for the arduous task of keeping the country safe. Funny enough, the military is fighting to keep the country safe from internal enemies and not mainly visible external ones, which should have even made the task easier. The recent change of the leadership of the Department of State Service (DSS) and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), which saw the appointment of Oluwatosin Ajayi as Director General of the DSS and Mohammed Mohammed as Director General of the NIA, could be taken as part of the efforts to strengthen the security arms of the government, for a better result. Continuous strengthening of the leadership of security agencies is good. Such a move could alter, for better result, the security architecture of the government and the country.

While the earlier appointed service chiefs are already implementing their programmes towards securing the country, the onus is on the newly appointed DSS boss and the NIA chief to devise a plan that would not only compliment the efforts of other security agencies but also make them be on top of their games. Since the country’s security challenges are mainly internal, the DSS is key.

For the DSS director general, it is good that he is coming at a time when he has the confidence of his colleagues. The fact that there was celebration and jubilation at the DSS when his appointment as the director general was announced proves that he has a huge goodwill. The new DG, therefore, has to do everything within his powers and capability to not only reposition the DSS but also make it maintain the elite status of a secret police.

One of the areas that the DG must work on is to end the almost politicisation of the DSS seen in the last couple of years. The DSS, just like other countries’ intelligence agencies, works discretely. It should be hardly heard or seen, but its operations and effect must be felt and noticed. What Nigerian have seen in recent times is a DSS that joins issues and engages in propaganda like political organisations. Nigerians were witnesses to the DSS issuing statements accusing people and organisations of crimes or raising unnecessary alarms about security threats. The DSS had had to play to be gallery most times, seeking attention. This is unbecoming of an intelligence agency.

What is obtainable in other climes is that an elite intelligence organisation like the DSS quietly does its things, but the people would see the result. DG Ajayi, therefore, should figuratively hood the DSS so that it would operate discretely and not coming to the press now and then to raise alarms that more or less tend to prove that the agency is working rather than it working. Inasmuch as the DSS should have a spokesman, the duty of such a person should be to provide information about the organisation to those seeking it, answer questions, and avoid unnecessary speculations. The DSS should only speak when it is extremely necessary. When the DSS speaks less, any time it speaks, Nigerians would take it seriously

The new DG should ensure that operatives of the DSS are professional in their conduct and would only act when investigations have been thoroughly concluded. A DSS that does not do thorough investigation but begins to act from answer to question would soon lose its bite and influence. This is why the showmanship should stop for professionalism to be amplified.

DG Ajayi is young, versatile, and experienced enough to make the DSS regain its respect. Having worked as State Director in many states and having taken part in discrete security operations and assignments, Ajayi is in a position to walk his talk. As an insider, as it were, having been part of the system right from 1995 when he enlisted in the agency, he is in a position to improve staff welfare, synergise with other security agencies and be the driver of security operations in Nigeria as intelligence gathering, discrete operation and swift action are at the pivot of DSS activities. The DSS should be proactive rather reactive. A DSS that is good at intelligence gathering would bust security threat at the planning stage.

For President Tinubu, he should not make the mistake of his predecessor. It was the kid gloves with which former President Buhari treated Boko Haram and criminal herdsmen that gave them the oxygen to exist and operate and therefore became the monsters that Nigerians see today. Wherever there is a security threat, Tinubu should support security agencies to deal with it, no matter who and the ethnic group involved. The same measure should be taken anywhere there is insecurity without double standard.

Insecurity is bad for everybody. It is not good for the country, the government, and the people. Therefore, anybody or anything that would arrest it must be supported.