Why Azazi can’t tackle Boko Haram -Usman Faruk
Some days ago, you submitted the report of the committee set up by the Gombe state governor to investigate the bombings of police stations and other places in the state allegedly by Boko Haram. As the chairman of the committee, how does your finding look like? Our findings and recommendations are not for you […]
Some days ago, you submitted the report of the committee set up by the Gombe state governor to investigate the bombings of police stations and other places in the state allegedly by Boko Haram. As the chairman of the committee, how does your finding look like?
Our findings and recommendations are not for you and they are not for public consumption. It is for the government of the Gombe State. The 12-man committee was put together by the governor and our report is for the governor and the government of Gombe state. All I can tell you is that there was a bombing by the Boko Haram sect in the state. The sect attacked and bombed the Divisional police station in Gombe and other structures in the town. They even threatened to bomb the Gombe prison and other government structures. This was why I was appointed to chair the committee.
The more the government and the security agencies are saying they are on top of the situation, the more the sect is carrying out attacks. Why?
This is because the National Security Adviser lacks the capability to tackle it. In September, when I learnt of the appointment of Azazi to replace Gusau, I travelled to Abuja and gave my piece of advice to a highly respected member of the Presidential Advisory Committee and close friend from Niger State. Since his appointment, this gentleman has proved me right, absolutely right that my observations and recommendations are nothing but facts. He has proved that he is not capable of addressing the situation. My view is centred on my disposition as a former security operative before I was appointed as the first military governor of the North-Western state in 1967, based in Sokoto during the civil war and beyond. General Azazi was highly qualified to occupy that position based on his previous position as the deputy to General Aliyu Gusau for a long time, but the present realities on ground would not enable him render-efficient service to the nation for these reasons.
He hails from the Niger Delta with a sociological make-up of very narrow contacts from other larger political zones with highly different and diverse cultural outlooks. His people and area have been in conflict with the majority of Nigerians across the land in the last 20 years. From my experience, security matters are very sensitive and onerous issues. Therefore it will require a very trustworthy, patriot to travel several kilometres to render security advice to the NSA without bias. In other words, very few security stakeholders will volunteer to travel from Borno, Sokoto, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano and even the South-West or the South-East as well as neighbouring African countries to supply the NSA free and useful information from among the 500,000 (five hundred thousands) retired police, military and customs officers and men.
Conversely, he himself lacks the nerve to travel unaccompanied and sometimes in cognito, as is the right security practice, into certain volatile areas in pursuit of information related to national security. His style has been the armed stampede approach which is guaranteed to either scare the information provider into repulsiveness or terrified silence. During his era as the NSA, General Gusau travelled in cognito to many parts of Nigeria without escorts, hence the successes recorded during his tenure. It is important for the NSA to, from time to time, travel to verify the information given to him without carrying any armed men with guns.
A Malam in Gembu will not be willing to give information to the NSA in the presence of armed men, but he will voluntarily give it when he is with him alone. Azazi is a desk man who relied majorly on intelligence furnished him by junior officers. All these add up to the fact that the present NSA is simply incapable of accessing classified information freely for the use of his sensitive organisation. This and the terrain he hails from, make it difficult for him to give or receive sensitive intelligence information. From my own assessment as a retired officer, the present NSA is only good in processing received intelligence but certainly not good in gathering same from hostile and difficult sources. The cornerstone of security is intelligence gathering, not processing because if you continue to process false intelligence you will be doing more harm than good to the country.
Managing current Nigeria’s security is far beyond special relationship with any president of Nigeria; it is a task that requires special breed of Nigerians and luckily enough, we have them in many numbers around the country. We must, therefore, reach out to them and invite them to national service. In the 1960s, there was a very serious crime committed in the office of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahamadu Bello by an accountant. He ran away and changed his name and took appointment with the UAC. I was given his photograph alone for the job and I went to Kontogora; I concealed my identity. In fact, I even worked as a labourer in his office before I was able to arrest him. This is what is lacking in our modern days; the NSA can’t go in cognito to these areas.
Unconfirmed reports had it that President Goodluck Jonathan appointed the NSA because he is his kinsman who had worked under General Aliyu Gusau for years?
That is where the problem lies. Any president or governor who appoints his kinsman or brother as his National Security Adviser is making a terrible mistake because the officer concerned will come across information that might not be pleasant to his boss, he will hide it. The NSA has been collecting information from his own people and feeding the president with it, saying the Boko Haram will finish soon. How will this be possible without him going secretly to the volatile areas or states like Borno or Yobe that are known to be the bases of the sect? You sit in Abuja and you said Boko Haram will finish soon. By experience, as a security operative and later governor, any President or governor who based the appointment of his security chief on personal sentiment will fail. The NSA should publish how many times he travelled to Kano, Borno, Yobe and other neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger and Cameroun in cognito.
Who then do you think is capable to do the NSA job?
I don’t know. It is up to the president and his team to search for somebody that can address this problem that is affecting all of us negatively. I don’t hate Azazi; I’m just expressing my concern about our security challenges. Look in the National Assembly, we have the Senate president and the minority leader, likewise at the House of Representatives, we have the Speaker and the minority leader. Why? Because the senate president represents the majority of senators in the senate while the minority leader represents the minority there. The same thing is obtainable at the House of Representatives. There will be a crisis the day you appoint the minority leader to be the senate president or the minority leader to be the speaker. This is what I’m saying.
Some people have started saying that the insecurity challenges are signs of disintegration predicted some years ago by the US that the country will be divided come 2015?
Nothing like that will happen by God grace.
The sect has now turned their attacks on media houses. What danger does this portend on national security?
Your question should be directed to the person that was given N1 trillion to do a job. Thank you.