Nigeria Police burdened by insecure security
Weekly Trust can reveal that currently there is a vendetta playing out and a blame game brewing between the State Security Services (SSS) and the police. Already, former police chiefs are beginning to make public their discontentment with the way the police is being blamed for the failure to stop Boko Haram. On Tuesday, 19th […]
Weekly Trust can reveal that currently there is a vendetta playing out and a blame game brewing between the State Security Services (SSS) and the police. Already, former police chiefs are beginning to make public their discontentment with the way the police is being blamed for the failure to stop Boko Haram. On Tuesday, 19th July, former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie told an audience in Lagos during a summit that: “What is responsible for the failure of our security outfits to track down the dissidents? You may say lack of dedication to responsibility on the part of the security operatives, but were they provided with the necessary logistics and equipment to do a good job? In all honesty, I would say that these groups have gone ages ahead of the security community. The prejudice with which the current Boko Haram issue is being treated is a clear indication that no lesson might be learnt from this one.”
Respondents cite ‘prejudice’ because they say the police are blamed for security failures even though national security efforts are joint efforts of different agencies involving the State Security Service (SSS), paramilitary agencies (Customs and Immigration Services) and military agencies. Security experts wonder how the SSS has failed in its primary role of gathering enough intelligence on Boko Haram before the insurgent group grew to its present status as the nation’s worst militant group.
Coomasie had said pointedly: “The nation’s security outfits, particularly the intelligence community lack the ability to provide the necessary and authentic information needed to take proactive measures to nip the activities of the Boko Haram Islamic sect in the bud.”
Weekly Trust’s attempts to get the SSS to speak on the allegation that it has failed in its primary role of intelligence gathering was not successful as the spokesperson of the SSS, Mrs. Merylin Ogar declined to comment on the issue when she was contacted by phone.
Security experts say the SSS uses its mythical status that it is not meant to be seen or heard because of the covert nature of its operations to disguise its failure and incompetence. This has made the police, a highly visible force, to be blamed for every security failure. But an argument by security experts spoken to for this report is that the SSS operatives might well be shadowy, but their political heads, as is the norm in other countries, are often invited by government and parliament to explain their role in security failures. In the current debacle involving the Boko Haram, the SSS has largely said nothing about why they had failed to alert the nation of the Boko Haram threat or if they had who had failed to act on their recommendations.
A former intelligence officer who craved anonymity told Weekly Trust: “Nigeria has no intelligence. You can talk of failure of intelligence when you have an intelligence apparatus in place, but in Nigeria we have nothing like intelligence; what the government is doing in that sector is a complete waste of time and resources.”
Security experts told Weekly Trust that the current security failure witnessed in the country is a failure not only of the police but of the Customs and Immigration Services whose often corrupt officers fail to man the country’s border effectively. An expert who also craved anonymity said: “Boko Haram have come out to say that the bombs they are using were brought into the country from abroad. How did the Customs fail to intercept such consignment? The elders in Maiduguri have also said that some of the Boko Haram members are aliens; the question is how did the Immigration fail to intercept them? The truth is the Customs and Immigration Services have failed in their jobs of providing useful information that will make the police act effectively. But what is happening at the moment is a piling of blame on the police as if they alone can do the work when there is supposed to be interagency cooperation.”
In an attempt to widen the scope of the blame, Coomasie had asked: “When and where did he (Mohammed Yusuf) turn violent? Was he provoked? If he was, who is responsible for the provocation? Did we consider dialogue? If not, why? Was he acting alone?” Coomasie’s questions are directed at the intelligence community who experts say by now should have furnished the public with answers to some of these questions.
Security experts encourage the use of intelligence as a means of countering the Boko Haram, rather than a fire-for-fire approach, as is the case with the current military operation in Maiduguri. Dr. Amaechi Nwaokolo, a security consultant said: “The success of any security operation is hinged on the community. Government should be careful not to create a situation that will alienate the people of Maiduguri. They should be talking to the people and building trust so that the people can provide them with useful information to fight the insurgents. This is a method the Americans adopted in Afghanistan after years of futile military operations.”
Another boggling question security experts are asking is why the National Assembly decided to cut funding to the police at a time of serious national security challenge. A check of the budgetary allocation to the Nigerian Police reveals that in 2008 the overhead allocation for the NPF was N12.2 billion; in 2010 it was hiked to N15.6 billion but for reasons that continues to beat the mind of security experts the overhead in the 2011 budget was slashed to N5.5 billion. “This in itself is a serious security breach,” said a security expert. “Out of this fund the police is expected to fuel and maintain its vehicles, maintain 120 Area commands, 1200 divisions, 1500 police stations. It is also expected to take care of other units like the Mobile Squadron, anti bomb squad, dog section and mounted troops. It is also expected to use this fund to provide local and international training for its personnel, pay for duty tour allowances, pay for burial of officers slain in the course of active duty and many other sundry needs.”
Security experts throw the blame on the National Assembly for failing to invite the leaders of security agencies to investigate where and how the nation’s resources voted for security is spent and managed and the result, especially with the threat of militancy sweeping across the nation.