Bolaji Akinyemi, professor of political science and former minister of external affairs, said the Ikoyigate saga involving the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

In a statement issued yesterday, he also faulted the constitution of the three-man investigative panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari erred by not appointing a person   with a history or experience in the operations of NIA a member of the panel.

“It is not too late to call in a former Director of NIA to serve as a consultant to the Osinbajo Panel,” he said.

Akinyemi who said he was forced to speak out as a result of moves by the House of Representatives to conduct open hearing on the saga warned against making report of the Osinbajo panel  public. Rather, the report could be shared secretly with the President of the Senate and the Speaker of  the House, he cautioned.

According to him, “under no circumstances should the report of the panel in as far as it relates to the activities of the NIA be made public.

The statement read in part: “When the news broke that some millions of dollars had been found hidden in a flat in Osborne Rd, Ikoyi, Lagos, I was quite frankly indifferent as it has become a recurrent decimal. I was not even bothered when nobody initially stepped forward to claim it.

“But when Ambassador Ayo Oke stepped forward to claim it on the part of the National Intelligence Agency, (NIA), alarm bells started to ring in my ears. It is one of the sacred traditions of the external intelligence trade to admit nothing and to deny nothing.

“A saving grace emerged when the President set up the Osinbajo Panel to untangle the web over the millions of dollars. But the President inadvertently made a mistake.  He did not appoint anyone with a history of external intelligence experience unto the panel.

“External Intelligence operations do not belong into the same security genre as domestic security forces such as the SSS, EFCC and the Police.

“External Intelligence officers, otherwise called spies, do not operate under the same operational penalties as domestic intelligence officers.

“The ultimate penalty for a foreign spy in most countries is death. Countries go to incredible lengths to hide the identities of their agents both domestic and foreign and their operations. No receipts get issued. Budgets are called black budgets because they are never publicly acknowledged.

“It would have been reassuring if the President had appointed a former head of or a former very senior member of NIA to be a member of the Panel. Even at this late stage, let me remind the Vice-President that a lawyer with a specialty in constitutional law will not appreciate the niceties of international law. It is not too late to appoint a retired Head of NIA as a consultant to the Panel.”