Security Chief in Security Drama

Dasuki

The Newsmaker

The recent ill-treatment of former National Security Adviser, Col. Dasuki Sambo is unfortunate and exposes the downside to power, writes Shola Oyeyipo

One particular campaign promise of President Muhammadu Buhari that sold him to a larger number of the electorate was that he would tackle corruption head on. Aside that, his perceived reputation as an incorruptible leader also endeared him to the people already inundated with widespread corruption that characterised successive administrations.

As Nigerians look forward to the new administration with renewed expectation that the almost incurable growing spate of corruption would soon be a thing of the past, the international community, particularly the US and other friends of Nigeria, that have castigated the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as corrupt, are also expectative that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration – with its change mantra, would curtail corruption, if not stop it.

It is interesting to know that the Nigerian defence issue, particularly as regards the former NSA, is of specific interest to the US. This is because when shedding light on the expectations of the US government from the Buhari-Obama talks, the Deputy Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, who said the meeting would offer the two countries opportunity for renewed and deepened relationship, pointed to the removal of all service chiefs and the National Security Adviser (NSA) appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan on July 13 as factors that would clear the way for robust military cooperation.

“The question is, would there be an opportunity to deepen our engagement and that opportunity is now. The US will offer to help President Buhari in tracking the billions of dollars in stolen assets and in raising U.S. military assistance to fight Boko Haram militants,” he said, adding that  “President (Barack Obama) has long seen Nigeria as arguably the most important strategic country in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Aside revealing that the US was willing to send military trainers to help Nigeria counter the six-year-old Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east, fact is that the country has provided $5 million in its latest support for a Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) combating the insurgents.

Similarly, it was gathered that while about to travel to the US on his highly publicised visit to President Barack Obama, President Buhari had ordered the preparation of the case-file for the $182m Halliburton scandal, which would lead to the eventual prosecution of the indicted persons in the multi-billion naira bribery scandal.

Expectedly, economic, security, financial and anti-graft issues were top on their agenda and it was emerged that President Buhari ordered the preparation of the case-file as part of precondition by the US government to show that President Buhari was ready to prosecute the suspects in Nigeria for their roles in the bribery scandal before Nigeria would enjoy partnership of most European countries in releasing the $141million dollars allegedly looted from Nigeria and stashed away in foreign banks.

Buhari is supposed to inform the US during the visit that all those indicted in the scandal would be brought before the law, which is some sort of deviation from the trial during the Jonathan administration, when a former Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, who was arraigned was eventually let off the hook under curious circumstances.

The resolve of President Buhari to revisit the Halliburton bribery was as a result of his discovery that the $26.5 million plea bargain money released by the oil servicing firm to avoid prosecution was not in any government account. The Jonathan administration had been under intense criticism by the US and the Obama administration had maintained that it would not authorise the release of about $130 million in the Halliburton case until Nigeria demonstrates seriousness in prosecuting her officials who accepted bribes from Halliburton.

Another case attracting the interest of the US government is the issue of Senator Kashamu Buruji, which it badly seeks his extradition to America to answer drug related charges. The US government held the view that the immediate past government of former president Jonathan protected Buruji, who was chairman, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-west. But few days after the Buhari administration was sworn-in, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) made to arrest and extradite Buruji, who is now the Senator representing Ogun East senatorial district to the US.

As the Halliburton case, the Buruji issues, the Nigerian defense matter is also an area of interest to the US, a country committed to fighting terror anywhere it surfaces and it was obvious that the government was unable to collaborate with the Nigerian government in the last six years of the destructive activities of the terror group.

In fact, the retired Army Colonel at a point told the British Broadcasting Corporation that Nigeria does not need the assistance of the United Nations and even the African Union to tackle the Boko Haram terrorist group while at the same time, the dwindling relationship between Nigeria and the US continued.

Even when Pentagon came up with what it called “actionable intelligence” from drone flights on information that might have indicated the location of some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls and turned it over to the Nigerian military commanders to pursue, they did nothing with the information on the grounds that the information was not reliable due to mutual mistrust between US and Nigerian officials.

“Tensions in the US-Nigeria relationship are probably at their highest level in the past decade,” said Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s former top diplomat for Africa, in an interview, adding: “There is a high degree of frustration on both sides. But this frustration should not be allowed to spin out of control.”

In Stuttgart, the New York Times reported, officials at the headquarters of the United States Africa Command offered their own bleak assessment of a corruption-plagued, poorly equipped Nigerian military that is “in tatters” as it confronts an enemy that now (then) controlled some per cent of the country.

While concerns mount over the excesses of the Boko Haram sect, when in the opposition, APC put the total amount spent by the country’s security apparatus at $32.88 billion in a paper delivered on behalf of the party at Porticullis House in the British House of Commons by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and accused the PDP of politicising the heinous activities of the insurgents.

While giving statistics on total security sector spending (covering defence, police, Office of  the National Security Adviser, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), and security-related service-wide votes like on amnesty programme, internal security operations, the party said the yearly budgetary allocations to the security sector in the last five years had gulped $32.88 billion. But the APC alleged that there was not much to show for the huge money purportedly expended.

“There are recurring reports and stories in the media about how frontline troops and soldiers have inferior weapons and firepower compared to Boko Haram’s and how Nigerian soldiers have been fleeing battlefields (into Cameroun), and communities and military barracks being easily overrun by Boko Haram fighters.

“This begs the questions about where and how is the money being spent? Is it truly spent on security? Is corruption taking place in security spending? What and where is the military hardware acquired? Who is supplying security equipment – manufacturers or third party agents?” Mohammed queried.

He pointedly alleged the Jonathan administration of profiting from the menace that has claimed countless lives in the North-east: “Put simply, President Jonathan’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency has been a spectacular failure, and this is deliberate for political reasons. Where and even if the President Jonathan-PDP administration may claim to know nothing about the origin of Boko Haram, it has actively sustained the crisis, profiteering from it.”

Though the DSS authority in a statement signed by one Mr. Tony Opuiyo, was quick to explain that the search conducted on Dasuki’s residences was to prevent treasonable felony against the state and as some incriminating items were recovered from his house, the truth is, considering the interests and issues attached to the Nigerian defence spending and the Boko Haram issue, there is a great tendency that he would still answer most of the questions asked by the APC spokesperson about the money.

In other words, there is a great feeling amongst the people that the Buhari government has an axe to grind with the former NSA and by extension, some former aides of the former president. This is why a majority of the people think that even if the government has a genuine case against the former NSA – it didn’t have to go about it in an embarrassing fashion, unable to hide its hidden disgust and eagerness for vengeance.

Laying siege on his house during a long holiday was clearly indicative of plans to have him behind the bars for that long, under the guise of investigation and more. Although Dasuki is not above the law, government was expected to have been more civilised in its approach and not come out as petty as it presented itself all because it craved to have him behind bars, allegedly for conscripted reasons.

Therefore, there are more convincing indications to show that the raid on his residences was a personal vendetta and this was evident in the statement by the DSS, where it referred to Dasuki's "antecedents". It was the more niggling because the raid on his homes occurred on the eve of Sallah and Dasuki, 30 years ago, led soldiers to arrest Major-General Buhari on the eve of Sallah. The coincidence therefore is too stark to be sucked in on the surface. It was, perhaps, some payback game.

Above all, the plight of Dasuki and others, who are currently answering one case or the other with the new government teaches an instructive lesson in power. It simply teaches that power is transient – the more reason the present occupant of political offices must learn to tread with caution and reasoned actions.