REJIGGING THE NATION’S SECURITY SECTOR

 Adroit diplomacy and stern confrontation are needed to defeat Nigeria’s festering security challenges, contends LOUIS ACHI

 Clearly mindful that national security is key to of any meaningful governance trajectory, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, shortly after his inauguration on May 29, summoned the nation’s security chiefs and heads of other critical security agencies to a meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Indeed, there was little wiggle room for lengthy rhetoric.

 At the June 1 meeting, President Tinubu gave marching orders to the security top-shots to redouble efforts in dealing with the menace of terrorism, insurgency, banditry, oil theft, sea robbery and piracy among others that have conspired to weigh down the nation.

 Briefing newsmen at the end of the two-hour meeting tagged – General Security Appraisal Committee, the National Security Adviser (NSA) – Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd) quoted Tinubu as saying that the new administration is determined to turn the tide of insecurity besetting the country.

 The President warned that security agencies “working at cross purposes and colliding with each other, is not something that the new administration will condone,” Monguno revealed. An unflattering inter-agency dissonance has often played out and significantly undermined the focus and efficiency of the nation’s security services.

 The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, led the service chiefs and security heads to the meeting. In attendance were the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Farouk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Isiaka Amao, and the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba.

Others were the Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS), Yusuf Bichi; and Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ahmed Rufai Abubakar. These are all appointees of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

 What is clear to critical security stakeholders and Nigerians at large, is that a national security rejig to reposition the sector, mirror and embed the new leader’s security philosophy is looming and inevitable.

   It is then not surprising that names are being dropped and the usual political intrigues and hot air wafted, mostly in security, political and media circles, on who’s likely to be appointed the nation’s next Minister of Defence by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu – amongst other security portfolios.

The position of the Minister of Defence is particularly important because of the critical statutory content it drives. In this wise, the president is expected to consider the pedigree, courage, accomplishments, sincerity, and disposition of the fellow to be so appointed. Such a fellow can also enhance harmonious inter-agency collaboration rather than the intermittent rivalry witnessed in the recent past and which the president properly condemned in his first meeting with security agency heads.

Out of a rich menu of potential appointees, one personality that combines both diplomatic and top-notch military background is Nigeria’s former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and ex-Ambassador to Benin Republic, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, (rtd). The Minister of Defence, appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, is the political head of the Ministry of Defence.

 The Ministry of Defence has the statutory responsibility of overseeing and supervising the nation’s armed forces. Its leader who is a cabinet-level head reports directly to the President. Beneath the Ministry are four subordinate military components: The Nigerian Defence Headquarters, the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force. Military operations and training are coordinated and managed by these components.

 The Defence Ministry’s core mission is to provide timely and effective administrative and support services to enable the armed forces build and maintain a modern, compact, strong, professional, mission-capable and mission-ready forces, for national territorial/maritime/airspace defence and contributes to peacemaking and peace-keeping duties worldwide under sub-regional and global organizations of which Nigeria is a member.

 In the inevitable new security architecture that President Tinubu envisages to retool and operationally tweak the armed services and other security agencies, soldier-diplomat General Buratai who served creditably as the Chief of Army Staff certainly ticks the critical boxes to boss the defence ministry with a vision encompassing both national and continental security imperatives.

 It could be recalled that in November 2022, at the 17th Africa Security Watch Awards and Conference in Gambia, General Buratai, who delivered a lecture titled “Counter-Insurgency And Counter Terrorism: Causes, Challenges, Lessons, And Deterrence”, said Africa’s loss has accumulated in billions of dollars while revealing that the cost of managing and combatting terrorism in the African continent has increased in from $1.54 billion in 2007 to $15.5 billion in 2016.

  According to General Buratai, “there can be no real development without security and peace, and in the same vein, there must be economic opportunities, equity and justice for security and peace to exist which in turn serves as the foundation or pillars of development.”

  It is hardly debatable that it’s only through this pathway that Nigeria’s current leadership can give meaning to the four essential human freedoms espoused by that great American President – Franklin Roosevelt – whose country supplied Nigeria with the democratic model she is operating currently. President Tinubu can also key into this timeless thinking.

 Today, the stakes are extremely high, and Nigerians are mindful that failure to achieve viable national security could imperil the country’s future as a coherent state.

 Right pegs should be enlisted to supervise round governance roles. General Buratai certainly has a critical contribution to make in the looming new security architecture.

    Achi is a Journalist