at happened to the attacks that were carried out?
I’ll first draw your attention to the fact that, all over the world, no one can completely root out crimes one hundred per cent. But we owe it to this generation and those unborn to reduce crimes to the barest minimum.
If we go by those who even started the intelligence business before us, here we are talking of 40 years. You can imagine the global threat levels and how even the most powerful nations on earth are currently grappling with various forms of internal insurgencies, heightened violent crimes, among others. Thus, intelligence all over the world can’t be perfect. I won’t tell you it’s 100 per cent. Secondly, where we get a good percentage of it, there are issues such as capability, terrain, and the need for strategic decision-making. Hence, the presidential action on State Police and forest guards are strategic solutions to enable vulnerable communities to defend themselves.
Imagine our closeness to the Sahel and the difficult terrain around Lake Chad. Imagine the Niger Delta militancy and the challenge of navigating the creeks by regular forces. We have such peculiar problems that require strategic solutions. Take the example of a state with difficult terrain with its own Police; they know how to deploy. The Federal authority cannot do it fully. So, intelligence is here; difficulties in curbing threats stemming from certain issues also exist.
Just a follow-up: will you say that those factors you’ve listed contribute to the inability to provide a swift response? People complain that the response isn’t swift enough. For instance, the Oriire attack in Oyo and the fact that the victims were held for weeks before eventually being rescued. Are the above reasons why that has not been achieved?
What I’d tell you is that immediately the incident happened, based on credible intelligence, troops chased them immediately, and sadly, a vigilante and a policeman were killed. During the second raid, more were killed, making a total of nine fatalities, four civilians and five security personnel. It was a complex operation involving a two-and-a-half-year-old infant who cannot run much if we invaded the place.
As expected, the rescue operation attracted a lot of social media disinformation; you have to sieve the information there. I give you an example: while that incident lasted, they were posting deepfake videos of children beaten with lacerations on their bodies. They were actually footage from a particular country on witchcraft-related incidents passed off as real-time crude events here. Recall the victims recounted how well treated they were by the criminals.
One of the things I’d like you to do in the media is fact-finding and separating facts from fiction. Some patriotic Nigerians understood that a soldier was killed, and other lives were lost during the rescue operation, and they empathised, having learnt about the nature of the kidnap group – an international terrorist group with links to Al-Qaeda.
Citizens ought to know that the incarcerated leaders of the kidnap group who were requested in exchange for the victims were arrested last year by the Service; their arrest helped to prevent high-profile attacks.
These are people found complicit in the Abuja/Kaduna train attack and were planning more kidnappings of foreigners, students, women and their children on a large scale to demand state recognition and freedom to practise their religion somewhere, hence the arrest of their leaders, proving proactiveness. The kingpins are the ones now sentenced to life imprisonment; the three other collaborators earned life imprisonment, which the Service will push for a stiffer penalty.
Let me ask you, because we are talking about working with other agencies. How will you assess the working relationship between your Agency and other sister agencies in Nigeria and with foreign intelligence partners? Where are there gaps, and where is cooperation strongest?
Locally, our information/intel sharing is great. Over the decades, we have collaborated with our allies in the US, the UK, France, and many other European countries. After we share our intelligence, we determine where we want the joint boots on the ground. Don’t forget that sometimes around 2000, US soldiers came to join us to deal with some threats. So, it’s very useful.
One of our strengths is that we are very open with ourselves and get support when we need it; we also support them. So, it’s the openness and frankness that are our greatest strengths. Can it be better? Yes. We will achieve many more feats with the liaison we now share.
Our citizens often misunderstand it, and we must keep educating them.
There is another side to my question, especially about inter-agency rivalry. So, how are you navigating that?
For me, that has to do with leadership. Anytime you see it happen, it is because a leader encourages it. My operatives know I encourage collaboration and joint operations. I must commend the leadership of all the agencies; we have an excellent working relationship. In fact, it was demonstrated in Oriire, Oyo State; no single agency could claim supreme credit for it. It was jointly achieved, and you saw the GOC when he was giving his brief; he called out every other agency that participated – DSS, Navy, Air Force, Police, NSCDC, vigilante, everybody. When you see rivalry thrive, the leaders encourage that. This crop of leaders, no!
You made a comment earlier about sentencing and obviously about the recent case that the Ansaru leaders were given life imprisonment and you are pushing for the death sentence. But I think the problem with capital sentencing is in the carrying out of the executions; we’ve not had one in close to 20 years. Is there an effort to get Mr President to sign the execution of these death sentences?
A nation evolves with its realities. Years ago, when we did not face this level of violence and terrorism, hesitation over signing death warrants may have reflected a different context. Today, with terrorists attacking innocent people in public, the reality has changed. I doubt any responsible authority faced with that level of brutality would refuse to sign.
Okay, so you’ve been getting a lot of convictions. Some life sentences and some death sentences. What are you doing differently that you are getting massive convictions across the country?
Diligent prosecution. It is not enough to allege that someone committed a crime; you must prove it. We are strengthening our investigations, evidence gathering, and understanding of offences because justice depends on the facts presented before the court. Even a strong case can fail without convincing facts.
We hear of massive infrastructural developments you have carried out since assuming office, and Today, we are privileged to see them. Such great changes. How did you achieve this feat in just two years in office?
From the very first day I assumed office as Director-General, one of my priorities was to provide a befitting and functional working environment for our officers and men. We have completed construction of a new modern office building by Julius Berger to accommodate the expanded Service organogram, requiring additional office space for staff, including the execution of several other welfare and capacity-building projects across the Service.
How has the DSS fared in its 40 years of existence?
To summarise how we have fared as a Service, Nigeria still exists; no President has been assassinated again in the last 40 years; and we have practised 29 years of unbroken democracy. Our Intelligence inputs into achieving these are known to you. However, I must add quickly that we still have a lot to do, in view of the current security challenges, especially terrorism and other violent crimes.
There should not be ethnic colouration to crime; we cannot criminalise a race or paint a whole ethnic group with one brush. Between 2003 and 2007, we had kidnappings in the South-East and South-South. Even recently, there was this viral case of Evans (aka the Billionaire Kidnapper). At a time in Nigeria, there was a problem of armed robbery. Remember Ishola Oyenusi, popularly called ‘Dr. Oyenusi,’ was a very notorious armed robber.
After Oyenusi’s execution, Lawrence Anini appeared on the stage. General IBB had to ask the then IGP, ‘My friend, where is Anini?’ With him was Monday Osunbor. The point I’m making is that we met crises in this world. Apart from robbery, there was Maitatsine, Kalakato, etc. One of the problems we hope to solve is ethnic colouration/politicisation of insecurity. A criminal should be treated as one, irrespective of his colour, race or religion.
Boko Haram started around 1998, but their Jihad started during the administration of late President Umaru Yar’Adua. The problems in Benue and Plateau States are age-long. It started as a dispute over access to land resources between native farmers, most of whom are Christians, and their Fulani neighbours, the majority of whom incidentally are Muslims. Over time, local criminal groups, including terrorists who pledged allegiance to international terrorist organisations, got involved, mainly to further their sinister agenda.
In your overview, you said something fundamental, that we all seem to forget that we all live among each other. As we have Yoruba and Igbo who were born and live in Sokoto, Plateau, and other parts of the North, likewise Ebira, Kanuri, and Fulani people born and living among Yoruba, Igbo, etc., in the South. It seems that at a point there was a paradigm shift, especially under the last administration. A particular tribe was perceived to be the most involved in crimes, especially kidnapping for ransom, in addition to land-grabbing. When and how did they become audacious?
A country should institutionalise its justice system to the extent that we fish out criminals and punish them in accordance with the laws of the land.
I agree that the attention should always be on solving problems. I’m from Oyo North, and I grew up there. I remember there were Fulanis around us. So, what radicalised them? What has changed?
What has changed is the loss of our values. I am happy you said we all grew up together. You said you were living with them in those villages, in the bush. At that time, some form of governance was extended to those remote areas: ‘Native Authorities,’ the Regional Forest Guard Law of 1956, then the State Controlled Land Use Act and Forests Act of 1978. However, Today there is no presence of governance in those places, leaving them as ungoverned spaces for criminals to keep victims of kidnapping. Hence the resuscitation of Forest Guards.
Let me tell you one of our findings during an investigation of herders’ and local farmers’ clashes: a group of community youths had offered some nomads a piece of land to graze their livestock for a fee of N70,000, only for the real owners of the land to appear and attack the nomads, who managed to escape and abandoned their herds, which were slaughtered and shared across the community. You can’t believe that the irrational and evil-minded nomads, in turn, returned to invade the community and killed human beings in retaliation for ‘animals.’
See what we have degenerated into! On a lighter note, let me reiterate how bad it has become. As a young officer, while haggling for potatoes in Jos, I chose and paid for a big basket, not knowing that there were stones tucked underneath – half of the size. In a situation where every facet of our lives has degenerated – security, hospitals, schools, markets, etc. – we need attitudinal change and a total rebirth. Can you imagine one of our own operatives pursuing an ethnic agenda? That’s why we are purging ourselves and publishing the names of dismissed staff, because they still defraud innocent citizens who do not know they are no longer with us. You, too, be an investigative journalist instead of one-sided sensational storytelling.
As for Sunday Igboho, you know I have been a strong advocate of community policing, but you need Government approval, training, and supervision; otherwise, it would amount to taking the law into your own hands.
Now, you also said someone has 30 GPMGs. That’s all over the country: North and South. Over decades, we have allowed this, including disarming security agencies and even outright stealing from Government security agencies’ armouries by unscrupulous operatives. So, what Government needs for rebirth is strict law enforcement: that is why we, as a Service, are now focused on convictions rather than mere arraignments. We have seven death sentences – four in the Owo case, as well as one each in Kogi, Katsina and Sokoto – as well as those jailed for between 20 and 40 years. There must be accountability.
We are also disrupting their supply chains, and you must have seen the interceptions/recoveries of 676 sophisticated firearms and 332,874 rounds of different calibres of ammunition from May 29, 2023, to date. The military, Police and other sister agencies have also made significant recoveries, but we need to do more.
As your tenure advances, what are the top priorities citizens should expect from you to consolidate on the ongoing reforms and successes?
I quote the President again: ‘Nigerians are in a hurry to celebrate peace.’ What they should expect from us is that the fight against terror, especially with strict enforcement of the law, would be strengthened. The turning point will be when we agree to face our common enemies, criminalise them, demonise them. The media must also strengthen its trust in the Government and ensure reportage that projects hope and effort, rather than fall into the temptation to serve as mouthpieces for terror elements.