The NSA And National Security

By Ben Nanaghan

The office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), all over the world, is very sensitive and primary to the very survival and peaceful existence of a nation. In fact in America which is the target of global terrorism, the National Security Adviser automatically becomes an assistant only to the President on all matters concerning national security. He therefore sits on the National Security  Council alongside the President, Vice President, Defence and Treasury Secretaries and the Secretary of State. The NSA collates various data from different military and intelligence agencies and attempts to reconcile all these data into a comprehensive  and intelligible whole to assist  the President in taking vital decisions which  sometime touch on the very survival of  the nation.

And this is why nations all over the world go for highly experienced ex-military generals or people of every high experience and integrity with military backgrounds.

Nigeria’s Former National Security Adviser, General Andrew Owoye Azazi was fired in June 2012 because he could not cope with the changing strategies of Nigeria’s sponsored forces of disintegration and a replacement was immediately appointed. This piece will not delve into the pros and cons of Azazi’s retirement and the immediate appointment of Col. Dasuki (retd) as Nigeria’s National Security Adviser.

It is, however, very pertinent at this early stage of Col. Dasuki’s  tenure  to offer  him some salient information that may assist him in his unenviable task of returning this nation to a peaceful and healthy democracy. It is not that he is oblivious of this information but it is necessary to refresh his memory  if he has forgotten some of these  facts.

If the new NSA plans to succeed in his delicate assignment, he should completely jettison the idea of dialogue with Nigeria’s insecurity apparatus. The primary reason for this is that the Federal Government has branded the group as faceless, and of no fixed address or identity.

The NSA even saw it as a big boost as he joyfully announced that he had the telephone numbers of this amorphous group.

There are one million and one reasons why the new NSA must never dialogue with this fundamentalist group which has decided to convert by force of arms the entire Christian body in Nigeria to Islam.

The NSA must realize that once he accepts dialogue, both parties have agreed to negotiate on a dialogue framework which involves a give and take situation  as equal partners.

The NSA must remember that the demands of this Islamist group is ultra fundamentalist. One of them is that all Christians must convert to Islam even before they accept to dialogue with the federal government. Another demand is that no non-Muslim should rule over Muslims in Nigeria. Even among the Muslim governors, this murderous group demands the sack of some of their own Muslim governors in the North. This means that the group will decide who becomes governor or even President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In dialogues both parties must come to the negotiation table with a flexible mentality with a list of those items you can barter away. After all dialogue is another form of trading by barter, a win or lose situation. You win some, you lose some.

Does the NSA think that he is going to meet rookies on the negotiation table? Those he wants to negotiate with are the pawns in the chess game of violence and insecurity sponsored by the behind-the-scene generals and other candidates who were frustrated by President Goodluck Jonathan’s triumph in the April 16th 2011 Presidential election. It’s unfortunate that the NSA shouted Eureka because he had the telephone numbers of some of the leaders of the heartless group.

The NSA should know that this group cannot function effectively without the sponsorship by these big untouchable generals and politicians who had even publicly declared  that they would  make Nigeria ungovernable for President Jonathan. Once the finance and sponsorship ceases, Nigeria will become peaceful and a haven for investors.

Any Nigerian who says he does not know the sponsors of  the current insecurity situation in the country is a  great unpatriotic pretender and does not have the love of Nigeria in his heart. These sponsors shouted at the roof tops that they would  make Nigeria ungovernable if President Goodluck Jonathan won the 2011 Presidential election. And even to date they have never veered from that path. And do we still say we do not know the sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria?

And yet the NSA wants to dialogue with the pawn instead of the king who is the most important power on the chess board.

Does the NSA know that any dialogue with this group gives them a stamp of authority and recognition in the perception of the international community? Apart from this, dialogue will boost the morale and shore up their psyche with an unprecedented swagger of victory which will not be to the least advantage of the eventual survival of Nigeria as  a united  and indivisible nation.

My humble advice to check the menace of this insecurity group is to trace the sponsors with a view to cutting off the funds that equip them for this heinous crime against their father land.

The new NSA must also move closer to countries that are experts in counter-terrorism such as the United States of America and Israel to learn one or two things from these countries. America and Israel are ready to assist Nigeria overcome its security challenges but Nigeria has not made the move in that direction. America is ready to declare Nigeria’s insecurity apparatus a foreign terrorist organization. If America tags the group a FTO, it will target the groups and their Nigerian sponsors who are well within the American Radar System. Sponsors’ bank account and investments in America and the EU will be targeted and Nigeria will benefit from training, intelligence gathering facilities and financial assistance from America.

I do not want to believe that the NSA is acting a northern script which advised President Jonathan to handle matters with kid gloves because the northern agenda is to bring down this present government by any means  possible.

When the Niger Delta militant problems made life unbearable for Nigeria, the Umaru Musa Yar’adua government established the Joint Task Force which brought the dreaded Niger Delta Militants to their knees. The JTF which was commanded by officers of Northern origin used maximum military force that brought down the defiant militants. The JTF even desecrated traditional  institutions by frog-jumping Niger Delta Kings – with their crowns on their heads.

Also in May 2009, a member of the then Federal House of Representatives and Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary suggested that the simplest way to end the Niger Delta Crisis was to wipe out the  20 million people who  live in the region so that Nigeria could  pump its full OPEC quota of 3.2mn barrels per day. Bala Nallah was not joking when he moved this motion in the House even though he later termed it a parliamentary joke.

But this so-called joke was a deep inner reflection of how the Northern elite was thinking then. They advised the kind hearted Yar’Adua to use maximum force on the Niger Deltans but today, they advise President Goodluck Jonathan to use minimum force on a situation that is almost tearing this country apart.

The NSA must not see this matter as a war against his Fulani kinsmen. He should see this war as a service to his conscience and to his nation. Alhaji Abubakar Rimi demonstrated maximum   patriotism when he invited  the military to quell  the maitasine menace in 1980.

Let us use maximum force as the Americans did when they gunned down Osama Bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout on May 1st 2011. The Americans also went ahead to kill Anwar Al Awlaki, Al-qaeda’s No 2 man six  months later in the Jawf province of Yemen on September 30, 2011.

If we put emotions, sentiments, self-deceit and pretence away I am very convinced our new NSA will be victorious over Nigeria’s forces of disintegration and anarchy.

Let us all join hands with the new NSA for the sake of Nigeria’s unity and progress to end this massacres in the north.

•Nanaghan writes in from Lagos. Email: [email protected]