State Of The Nation: Aliyu Gusau And The Task Before Him

No doubt, assigning General Aliyu Gusau the Defense portfolio in the new cabinet must have been informed by the security challenges this country is facing today. If there is anything we need now, it is to tighten the work in the defence and security sectors as lose ends created either by commission or outright omission have caused this country dearly in terms of loss of lives and property. Gen Gusau coming from where he is coming from, is expected to deploy his considerable knowledge and experience to assist in stemming the scourge of terrorism that is fast becoming the greatest threat to the country’s existence since after the civil war.

If President Jonathan could openly express his disappointment on the adverse effects of inter- security services rivalry on the nation’s efforts at addressing the boko haram scourge amongst other serious security challenges across the country, the new Defense Minister should know that resolving this rivalry would be the first agenda on his priority list.

As said by the President, “What I noticed, which may not be quite right, is that our intelligence services are not sharing information.  They operate in isolation and it is not too helpful to government.  They must find a way to work together and find a way to ensure that they complement their efforts to protect the one government they are serving.  When any member is sick, it affects the whole body.  For the body to work well, every member must function optimally”.

It is no longer a secret to even the ordinary Nigerian that governments’ efforts at tackling the nation’s now-complicated security challenges has not been effective because of lack of cooperation among security agencies.  This is not the time for power-grabbing tendencies at all. Is it not absurd that some services hide their unwillingness to cooperate with others under the guise of the dichotomy in terms of functions and assignments between the Ministry of Interior and that of Defence? This is one area that the new defense minister has to address as he is expected to provide a meeting point under one command because a house that is divided against itself cannot stand not to even talk of recording a single dot as tangible achievement.

That some security agents and their organisations could deliberately hoard intelligence from sister agencies because of mutual suspicions and/or supremacy tussle is totally absurd and completely negates the spirit of intent in their concept of espirit d’corp. Whatever gave birth to this unholy friction should be opened up and thoroughly trashed as the situation have only succeeded in sabotaging the efforts of the federal government at addressing the menace of the boko haram sect and various peculiar security challenges in different parts of the country.

Those who should know have said that on the African continent, General Gusau, is one of the four top security czars well respected by Western intelligence agencies from Western Europe to North America. So he should deploy all needed contacts and networks to tame the boko haram insurgency because Nigerians are getting tired of excuses and explainations for failures and/or outright inaction. As said by experts, beyond the militant salafists, insurgency is also a dirty war, a proxy war woven around Western interests.  So part of the war should be to link up with external intelligence services. And achieving this should not be a big problem to the new Defence Minister, with his extensive background in intelligence operations within and outside the country.

Another challenge that should be confronted with the same seriousness as the ravaging scourge of the Boko Haram menace is the now very well organized stealing of crude oil from oil facilities across the Niger Delta.

How can a nation be losing 300, 00 barrels or more of crude oil on daily basis and nobody seems to actually want to frontally confront this menace? Even if it is only one barrel we are losing daily to local and international thieves, the issue remains that beyond the economic loss, the entire act depicts a country that is unsecured, undefended and managed by unconcerned leadership- military and civilian. The new Defense Minister should task the naval high command and leadership of the Joint Military Taskforce in the Niger Delta to show proof of why they think their present approach has been the best.

How could we have reports of so many illegal refineries around the Niger Delta where the JTF and the Navy literally lives and none of these agencies has ever for sure say how these illegal refiners were built and source their crude?

Most of the oil tankers that act as final receptors of the crude oil stolen from the creeks and near-shore areas and some of the illegal refineries’ output are bigger in size than 50-100 trailers combined into one structure and these vessels conveniently berth in our territorial waters even outside our waters without the Naval patrol aerial flights and ships/gunboats spotting any of them. Haba! Somebody is not telling all the truth!

Crude oil theft should be seen and treated more as a threat to our internal and national security rather than as mere economic sabotage. Siphoning crude oil and barging illegally refined petroleum products to sell in markets outside the country is not a petty thief issue because it shows that miscreants can just enter any part of the country unchallenged and unhindered and takeaway whatever they want maybe one day they may attempt to even take some of our leaders. Who knows what they are bringing in as they come to freely take oil? You see why the challenge of crude oil theft should be second on the priorities of the new defense minister!