By Olakunle Olafioye
Boko Haram insurgents last weekend freed 82 of the remaining Chibok girls who have been their captives in what was believed to be a swap deal, which saw the government release some detained Boko Haram members in exchange. Colonel Gabriel Adetunji Ajayi, (retd) in this interview said although there is nothing unusual about the deal, he, however, expresses fear about the development. He equally explained why the government had to resort to a swap deal and attempts to situate the problem. He speaks more on Nigeria’s war against insurgency and the controversy currently rocking Nigerian Intelligence Agency.
What do you make of the plan by the House of Representatives to probe the NIA cash controversy?
The House of Representatives is the genuine representative of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Nigerian Intelligence Agency is also the property of Nigeria. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the state houses of assembly and the National Assembly appear to have been pocketed by the executive and have, therefore, been robbed of their oversight function. Even the job being done by the EFCC today is supposed to be part of the oversight function of the House of Representatives. That is why the president, the vice president and governors and their deputies have no immunity before the assemblies. They can be impeached by the House. The National Assembly has power over everything in Nigeria, because everything in Nigeria belongs to Nigerian people. Lawmakers are supposed to work in the perfect interest of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, they have the right to investigate anything. In fact, there should be an intelligence committee in the House. But the fact is that the hearing should be top secret; it shouldn’t be an open hearing where you have people at the gallery listening to what they are discussing. In most countries in the world, people that belong to security and intelligence committees are people that have been properly vetted by intelligence agencies. They are people that can be trusted, who will not divulge secrets.
But Nigeria has a peculiar political climate. The House of Representatives you are talking about is made of people of diverse political leanings and affiliations. Don’t you think their party interests may further jeopardize our national secrets if the House dabbles into it?
The point is that the management of Nigeria is by camouflage and concealment. Our politicians are not working in the interest of Nigeria. The moment they are elected, the interest of the country should be paramount to them. There are times partisanship is understandable and there are times they need to be patriotic for the survival of the nation. We must first of all have the nation before the political party can thrive. So, if they cannot put partisanship aside and look at things that affect the security of the nation objectively, then they are not worthy to be there. It shouldn’t be about APC or PDP or APGA now. It should be about Nigeria and the security of Nigeria. Whatever political party they belong to, there must be the need to understand that the survival of this country should be placed higher than any other considerations. They should know that Nigerians have vested them with the power to legislate for the welfare, security and goodwill of the people. If they cannot do that, then they are irrelevant and that’s why some people are calling for the scrapping of the National Assembly.
If the National Assembly knows its powers and its responsibility very well and they do it the way they ought to do it, nobody in his right senses will be calling for the scrapping of the National Assembly. When there is illegal seizure of power, the only organ that is normally affected is the legislative arm, because it’s always abolished and that’s why the only arm of government that has not been able to grow very well to maturity in Nigeria is the legislative arm, because of the interruptions occasioned by military interventions. The assemblies were voted in again only in 1999 but the executive and the judiciary has been there all along.
Don’t you think that the resolve by the presidency to saddle the Osinbajo Panel with the responsibility of probing the NIA cash controversy was borne out of the peculiar politics the National Assembly plays and the immaturity of the National Assembly as you said?
You are right. I am not happy about the way the presidency handles the matter. I am not happy about the deadly rivalry among the security echelons in Nigeria. If there is no rivalry among them and the EFCC has the inkling and they are working together for the interest of this nation, the EFCC ought to have informed the NIA and the operation should have been carried out secretly. No Nigerian should have been aware of this issue. When Nuhu Ribadu, as the head of the commission had so much information about the former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, Ribadu gathered all necessary information, he didn’t go to arrest him at the police headquarters claiming he was exercising his power as the head of EFCC. No, he didn’t do that. Rather, he carried all the documents in his possession to Mr. President, who called the IGP to his office and gave him a sheet of paper to write his resignation letter. And there and then, the IGP left the office of the president as former Inspector General of Police. And necessary paper work took place. Nobody was talking about whether the stolen money by the ex-IGP was supposed to be top security money or what have you. So, the Tafa Balogun issue did not ridicule the police at all, it did not expose the secret of the police. That’s what should have been done in the case of NIA. To now ask the VP’s panel to probe the case, the issue is no longer a secret, because everybody already knows about it.
Are you saying that the presidency made a mistake in constituting the three-man panel to look into the matter?
There is no hard and fast rule about investigation. The president might be privy to certain things, which he might not want to be in the open. That was probably the reason he empowered the panel to look into this issue. But the problem with Nigeria is that we have no confidence in our government. Like I said, the government is run by camouflage and concealment, no transparency, no honesty, no truthfulness in our system of government. So, people suspect everything and insist to know everything. What the president should have done is to set up a judicial commission of enquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge and make it a top secret. Probably, we can include the Attorney General as well as the National Security Adviser and the Vice President must be an interested party in what has happened. But it’s possible that his advisers did not give him such advice. There are so many ways the president could have gone about it but whatever the president has done was done on our behalf and we should accept it in good faith.
What do you now make of the disagreement between the Senate and the House of Representatives over the probe of the NIA because current information indicates that the Senate is not interested in probing the issue?
The two bodies are not follow-follow. They decide their separate parameters for different issues. For instance, those to be confirmed for offices are confirmed by the Senate not the House of Reps but the budget is discussed by the two and there must be parity between both arms before the budget could be passed. So, it’s not compulsory that the Senate must probe what the House of Reps is interested in probing and vice-versa. Remember the fuel subsidy saga; it was the House of Reps under Farouk that probed it not the Senate. And the fact that the Senate said it’s not probing the NIA controversy does not mean that it will not probe it underground or secretly but they won’t make it open. The moment they tell you they are not probing it, you as a journalist, will take your eyes off the Senate.
But it’s possible they will probe it secretly, so that they will know what actually happens among them, because they are the custodians of the authority of the Nigerian people and nobody is expected to do anything that is outside the interest of the people of the country. Whatever both of them are doing should be in the interest of the people. There is nothing wrong in them probing it; they are free to look into it. If they say they are probing, they are probing for you and I, but the President is probing for the executive, not for you and I.
Do you trust a House of Representatives that has the tendency to be divided along political lines can probe an issue bordering on national security without jeopardizing national security?
Your question is relevant to the extent of immaturity of our legislative houses. Assuming they are mature and understand what they are voted to do, in that case, there will be no need for the question you are asking now. But as it is now, of course there will be discordant voices. But then it’s not their fault and it’s because the legislative arm of the government was not allowed to grow properly.
If it had been since 1966, you would not be saying what you are saying today but because of these constant breaks in transmission that is the reason the arm has not grown up to the level of maturity we expect them to have attained. The American Congress probed the Iran rebel arms deal where Oliver North took responsibility. US Congress is made of both Democrats and Republicans and they probed the case under the government of Reagan without jeopardizing their national security and interest. All over the world, sensitive cases like these are handled with high level of maturity. It is because of our immaturity that our people will go to the House and begin to toe party lines. Of course there are times partisanship is allowed but there are occasions where national issues will require them to dump partisanship. As it is, we expect them to look at the current issue from non-partisan point of view. If they fail to do that, then there will be problem. I can understand the fear of most Nigerians. The House of Reps should probe it but they should make it top secret. The law that set up this agency is a legislative law and the legislature should be able to discuss them and put the options there.
There is a claim that the National Security Adviser was aware of the cash and the covert operations it was meant for and that the NSA briefed the president about this. If this is true, why are we still making a fuss about the whole show?
If I were the president, I would sack everybody including the NSA. You know what happened in the case of Oliver North in respect of Iran rebel contract arms deal. But here, our people don’t take responsibility. If Mr. President was briefed and the president said he was not briefed, the person who claimed to have briefed the president should take responsibility. But here, people don’t take responsibility. All of them should have gone by now. There is no reason they should remain there. If they had gone, there will be no question of probing this or that. I have a manual of intelligence security operation over the world with me. And when you read about Mossad, the Israeli secret service, you will see some of the secret blunders that have been committed and those that committed the blunders resigned quickly. When their blunders become subject of public discussion, it’s no longer covert operation. That is why all of them will keep quiet and walk away.
Eighty-two Chibok girls regained their freedom last weekend and we are made to understand that they secured their freedom through a swap deal that saw the government release some detained Boko Haram members. What is your view of the deal?
I am not part of the government and I am not privy to the security brief concerning the degradation of the Boko Haram operation apart from what we read on the pages of newspapers. If the government thinks it has degraded Boko Haram insurgents sufficiently and that if they released those that were captured, it would not lead to upsurge in Boko Haram insurgency, they should feel free to exchange them to secure the freedom of the girls. This is a normal practice all over the world. Israel will tell you that they never exchange prisoners, but underground to get the corpse of an Israeli soldier from the Palestinians they can release 200 Palestinian detainees in Israel just to get the dead body of just one Israeli soldier but they will not release them in the open; it will be done secretly. But in the case of the Chibok girls, their release cannot be kept secret, because their case had become an international issue. Otherwise, if it had not attracted this level of publicity, then possibly you would not have known that government released anybody for them. All over the world, people exchange high profile prisoners in swap deals. It’s not a new development just that it’s done covertly. There is no big deal in what the government did.
Isn’t the idea of swap deal an indication that the nation’s security and intelligence agencies lack the capacity to secure the freedom of those held captive by the insurgents?
I have often complained that there hasn’t been enough investment nationally on strategic intelligence service. Nigeria ought to have a national security coordinator different from National Security Adviser. We toy with intelligence and the reason is very simple. It’s of colonial heritage. When the colonial metropolitan power took over Nigeria they destroyed the security system on ground. The Alaafin’s army was disbanded, the Ijesha army was disbanded, all the armies were disbanded and they established their own army to serve their personal interest. So, till today, our military, our police are very hostile to Nigerians. That is why you will see a soldier beating civilians. It’s because their mentality of serving those in power and not the people has not been removed. This has continued till today so much that they cannot reason that they are meant to serve the people. Thus, when we became independent, the people that took over from the colonial masters did not look into the issue of national security. They kept the military at arm’s length without equipping it. Rather, they began to use the police to harass the people like the colonial masters. There was no investment in national security. They never thought of how the new nation would be secured then and in future. It wasn’t until Ghana increased their defense budget in 1958 before Nigeria realized that it was a terrible thing for them to have national budget lower than that of Ghana.
Otherwise what we had was a ceremonial security system. There is no investment in strategic intelligence. If you want to gather intelligence in Borno for instance, you cannot send an Ibo man or a Yoruba man to serve as intelligence operative there, they will pick him up. You need a Kanuri man to do that. But to now get a Kanuri man who will spy and work against his own people, you will have to pay him very well. So, what we get from our intelligence service is equivalent to what we invest in it. Intelligence is money. If you are not prepared to invest in it, you cannot get better result from it.
Where is our Force CID? No investment. Money must be pumped into it. If you know how much Israeli intelligence agency, American intelligence agency and French intelligence agency spend yearly; you will understand what we are saying about Nigeria’s investment in intelligence. All these foreign intelligence agencies spend heavily on intelligence in the interest of their countries unlike here where the working is in the interest of those in power, not the nation. That is where the problem lies. Until we reverse this mentality and have nationalism in intelligence, nationalism in military operation, nationalism in police operation, we will remain like this.