The Senate says the quest for personal wealth has undermined institutional coherence and is responsible for interpersonal rivalries within Nigeria’s security services.
Chairman of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Security Challenges, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, stated this while presenting a 74-page report on the findings of the committee during plenary yesterday.
“There is a lot of internal incoherence and inter-personnel conflicts which have led to a lot of antagonism within the security organizations”, he said, adding that “the absence or inadequacies of effective corrective mechanisms within those institutions allowed inter-personnel disputes to fester thereby undermining the operational efficiency of the services”.
The Senate constituted the committee in January to engage the security agencies with a view to restructuring the country’s security architecture.
Senator Abdullahi added that: “Most of the agencies are operating in isolation with very little, if any, coordination between them.
“This most unfortunate situation can be seen from the recent face-off between the office of the IGP and the Police Service Commission which degenerated into open litigation in the law courts”.
He also cited a leaked memo written by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, accusing the service chiefs of breaching protocol as another example of the problem.
“Most recently, the public release of letters from the NSA’s Office to the service chiefs discountenancing their engagement with the chief of staff to the president bordering on security matters, is a loud testament of the level of disharmony and inter-personnel conflict and intrigues within the nation’s security and defence establishments.”
Senator Abdullahi said inter-agency rivalry and endless battles of supremacy had undermined operational effectiveness.
“This has worked against cooperation, sharing of information and effectiveness of intelligence and operational platforms for coordinated internal security operations.”
He added that the security agencies tend to acquire modern technology and other force multipliers in isolation which resulted in the multiplication of incompatible platforms belonging to the different arms of services.
He said the alleged non-funding of the Office of the National Security Adviser since 2015 had undermined the effective performance of its coordinating function in the Security Architecture, and had led many agencies to question its authority and relevance in various fora, thereby adversely affecting inter-service cooperation and intelligence sharing.
He blamed the failure to define functions and boundaries between intelligence agencies on defective laws governing the operation of the Department of State Services, the National Intelligence Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency.
According to him, the prevalence of importing all the nation’s national security equipment and gadgets undermines the security of the nation and amounts to colossal wastage when the equipment remain unserviceable due to lack of components and spare parts.
The committee said the existing laws governing the security architecture were antiquated with conflicts, overlapping of jurisdictions and lack of definition of role, among others.
It recommended the amendments of the Acts establishing security agencies to address the identified challenges and make them more efficient and effective.
It also recommended that the Police Command structure be decentralized with operational and budgetary powers vested in the zonal commands.
The committee also recommended that the almajiri system be scrapped and the out-of-school children be ploughed into the normal school system.
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