One Accidental Discharge too close

 I have waited all week for news from official quarters explaining what really transpired, and I hoped that Government would deny that the incident took place. There has been no word and I shudder to imagine that the incident occurred. I hope it did not. According to wire reports, a gun shot went off at […]

 I have waited all week for news from official quarters explaining what really transpired, and I hoped that Government would deny that the incident took place. There has been no word and I shudder to imagine that the incident occurred. I hope it did not.

According to wire reports, a gun shot went off at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in the presence of the Danish Foreign Minister Mr. Kristian Jensen who was at the head of a Danish Delegation to meet with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. But for the substance, the story was itself poorly written. It appeared verbatim on all wires, and I assume that it was syndicated from only one suspicious source, and may be, should not even be taken seriously. But did the incident occur? The story first claimed that "an operative of Nigeria’s Secret Police, the Department of State Security Services (also called DSS or SSS) accidentally discharged his weapon in the presence of the visiting Danish Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Kristian Jensen". Then it went on to describe a near eye witness account of the incident said to have occurred as the Danish Foreign Minister and his diplomatic party was being processed through State House security when the "DSS official discharged his weapon". The report added that in the panic, the Danish Minister was "whisked…..into the toilet for safety”.

But the story again suddenly speculates that the security detail whose gun discharged accidentally was a soldier, as it claimed in rueful commentary that this "is what you get when you replace highly trained DSS operatives with soldiers”. We are then reminded that Presidential Security was a Department of State Security call until President Muhammadu Buhari "ordered that DSS operatives at the Villa….be replaced with soldiers". The report then goes on to pay glowing tribute to “DSS operatives who are assigned to protect the President … highly trained and in the history of the service, this kind of embarrassment has never happened”, quoting the source.

The manner the incident was reported suggests that someone is trying to draw attention to an interest, or even promote it. Did it truly occur, that while the Danish Foreign Minister was being cleared through security for a meeting with Vice President at Aso Rock, a gun accidentally discharged its bullet? That the incident has not been officially denied and at least not to my knowledge, should mean it happened, and that scares me. A flying bullet, a heart beat away from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who is a heart beat away from President Muhammadu Buhari, is too close for national comfort and should not be taken lightly. By its construction, a weapon is not meant to discharge accidentally. Blame is on the human error of a wilful or careless bypass of all safety procedures, a gun or any weapon for that matter is not supposed to accidentally discharge. Nobody’s precious life should hang so delicately on an accidental discharge, more so, not a visiting Foreign Minister’s, not a Vice President’s, not a President’s, not any body’s!

The subjective recall of the alleged replacement of the erstwhile Presidential Security from the Department of State Security with Military details is nagging. It is indeed true that there was mistrust of the palace guards under the DSS of the old order who served President Goodluck Jonathan, to the extent that fears for the safety of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo were publicly expressed at the inception of their rule. It was a commonplace sentiment capable of driving an aberration that dislodged designated institutions from performing their functions. Should this incident if it occurred be hushed up, it would mean that the appropriate technical measures have not been taken as institutions compete to serve one man as wives in a polygamous home would. It is a serious matter. If the Department of State Security is the designated institution for looking after the safety of the President and the Vice President, it should perform that function without let or hindrance. Institutions are not partisan or emotional and sentimental. Individuals in the institutions, being susceptible to being compromised, are. They are the ones to be changed, not the designated institutions.

There is need for a review of our whole security culture and protocol. In any public occasion, it is easy to find uniformed security details are more spectators than crowd controllers. Somehow, in all state functions I have been Master of Ceremony for, you can not keep beggars, area boys and hoodlums from the State box. There is even a bigger issue. What is a uniformed aide-de-camp doing behind a President, a Vice President, a Governor or a Deputy Governor? This is a hanging relic of our colonial experience – a uniformed orderly behind the colonial Resident of Divisional Officer. As a function of security, such practice is defective and archaic and for me, a television practitioner, it is a shot spoiler. When a close up of a President delivering a passionate message is needed, I am having to make room to accommodate that uniformed man at the back. The significance is archaic and lost. Watch international networks. We are alone in the practice.

This may have been a small incident to many, but if it indeed occurred, the implications are grave and hence should be investigated thoroughly, and appropriate professional measures instantly taken.