Missing Links in Nigeria’s National Security System
by
Prof. Emeka Aniagolu
In summary fashion, it is arguable that Nigeria’s national security organizations can be divided into two broad categories: (1) Domestic Law and Order and (2) National Defense — against external attacks. Of course, the two broad categories are not watertight. There is porosity between the two. For instance, although domestic law and order is primarily the work of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), if things get out of hand, that is, beyond the capacity of the NPF, the Armed Forces of Nigeria (i.e. the Army, Air Force and Navy), can be called into action by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. However, that, theoretically, should be the last resort, not something jumped on for the slightest reason, or worse yet, at the slightest excuse.
The militarization of domestic law and order management is not the best public policy for promoting civil society. That is not to say that bad policing, as has been the case in the United States along racial lines and in Nigeria along ethno-lingual and religious fault lines; is any more acceptable for encouraging the growth and development of civil society. However, a situation where the police regularly relies on the military to do its job, renders it organizationally impotent and dependent on the military whenever there are domestic law and order crises. That has, unfortunately, become the modus operandi of the NPF in many theaters of domestic conflict and crises in Nigeria.
Other than the overarching distinction between the two broad categories: domestic law and order and national defense; there are overlaps, if not redundancies between and amongst Nigeria’s security agencies in relation to their statutory functions. Although a good number of Nigeria’s security agencies interface with the National Police and Defense Forces, they are not, strictly speaking, bare knuckles law enforcement agencies. They are primarily intelligence gathering and surveillance organizations. But many, if not most, double in both capacities, blurring the lines between intelligence gathering and surveillance, juridical and law enforcement functions. [See Table 1 below for an outline of Nigeria’s security agencies and their primary statutory functions]
*The State Security Service (SSS) or Department of State Services (DSS) has its roots in pre-colonial Nigeria. It formally came into existence in 1948 with the establishment of the then “E” Department (Special Branch) domiciled in the Office of the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force. Following the abortive coup of 1976 during which the then Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated, General Olusegun Obasanjo promulgated the NSO Decree №16 (1976) in one of his foremost national assignments as the Head of State. The Decree witnessed the establishment of the Nigerian Security Organization (NSO), which came in the wake of the security challenge posed by the 1976 abortive coup. The NSO was then charged with the responsibility of timely procurement of relevant and well analyzed intelligence necessary to meet the highlighted challenges and other matters bordering on National Security. At the inception of General Ibrahim Babangida’s administration in 1985, he overhauled and re-organized the NSO through Decree №19 of 1986 also known as National Security Agencies (NSA) Decree, 1986. This exercise witnessed the emergence of three (3) separate establishments, the State Security Service (SSS), Defence Intelligence Service (DIS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Upon transition from military to civilian rule in 1999, the Service has continued to nurture, preserve and protect the country’s democratic governance.
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In addition to the overlaps and redundancies, it is sadly the case that Nigeria’s “National Security Architecture or Infrastructure,” is largely a farce or a “paper tiger.” Here are the reasons for my above assertion.
1. Nigeria’s “National Security Architecture or Infrastructure,” is more a collection of bureaucratic organizations peopled by uniformed mandarins, than a truly national security infrastructure or architecture. Nigeria’s national security architecture or infrastructure, like so much of Nigeria’s civil service and panoply of commissions, is a ‘National Jobs Program,’ rather than a National Security System. The pomp and pageantry of the Armed Forces, with their colorful uniforms, shiny medals, epaulettes and jackboots, brass bands and brandishing of lethal weapons, not to speak of their well-deserved reputation for brutality and violence; masks that shell-game to the Nigerian public.
2. Nigeria’s “National Security Architecture or Infrastructure,” lacks a robust national military-industrial-complex. Its main source for provisioning its armed forces with weapons of war — light as well as heavy weapons — is through purchases of military hardware from abroad; especially, from the UK and the USA. No nation-state that relies on furnishing itself with weapon systems from other nations, can be seriously considered as having a credible national security architecture or infrastructure. Such a nation’s weapons storehouse is an open secret to its arms suppliers and those who perform maintenance services for its weapon systems and other machinery: aircrafts, ships, armored vehicles, surveillance systems, etc.
3. Nigeria’s “National Security Architecture or Infrastructure” lacks a robust Research & Development (R&D) component. It lacks an institutionalized synergy between institutions of higher learning (within the country), especially polytechnics and Universities of Science and Technology, and the Armed Forces establishment of the country. What weapon systems of international consequence are being researched and developed by the military itself, or for the military by polytechnics and universities of science and technology in Nigeria?
4. Nigeria’s “National Security Architecture or Infrastructure” was/is primarily designed to prevent or combat internal insurrection and/or insurgency; rather than to wage wars of national defense from outside Nigeria’s territorial borders. Although Boko Haram has extra-territorial assistance — materially, financially and logistically — from foreign groups and/or governments; its main base and field of operation is within Nigeria. Moreover, Boko Haram has domestic roots in Nigeria, defined in terms of its ideological inspiration and origin. Therefore, it qualifies as essentially an insurgency. Still, Nigeria’s National Security System has been unable to defeat or destroy it for the past 20-plus years! Imagine, then, if a foreign military power, complete with a robust modern military-industrial-complex of its own, were to wage a full-scale war of aggression against Nigeria? Nigeria’s so-called National Security Architecture or Infrastructure would crumble like a house of cards in relative short order!
5. In a very real sense, Nigeria’s Army and Police have not evolved much from what they were under British colonial rule, defined in terms of strategic national defense and maintenance of domestic law and order. For example, the Nigerian Army and Police, such as they were under British colonial rule, were designed for THREE primary purposes: (1) To subdue indigenous peoples, city-states, kingdoms and/or empires, that had yet to submit to the supremacy of British colonial rule; (2) To protect colonial Britain’s commercial interests from domestic or foreign threats or disruptions; the ‘foreign threat’ defined primarily as other European colonial interests within or adjacent to what colonial Britain considered its “sphere of influence.” In the case of West Africa, the threatening foreign power was France; (3) To maintain internal security, defined in terms of law and order, especially against native insurrection, industrial strikes/work stoppages, non-payment of taxes, agitation for independence, etc.
6. In the context of British colonial dispensation, it was presumed that Nigeria’s “security system” would be dependent on Britain’s military-industrial-complex as well as capacity for its effectiveness, for a long time to come, if not indefinitely. It must be remembered that at the time, if not still presently the case, the “white man,” in colonial Nigeria’s case, the British; nursed the racist assumption that modern science and technology were beyond the genetic capacity of the “black man,” and therefore, is the congenital preserve of the “white man,” and hence, the Western World! Unfortunately, that assumption is still playing itself out in postcolonial “independent” Nigeria!
Finally, given the domestic security challenges Nigeria has faced and continues to face, in the North, South, East and West of the Federation; it is necessary that the capacity of the NPF be seriously enhanced in order to wean it off dependence on the military, so as to shore up its law enforcement capabilities. That way, the Nigerian military is freed to focus its full attention on creating a modern, credible, modern military-industrial-complex. In addition to strengthening the law enforcement capabilities of the NPF, it is necessary to refashion the Nigerian Security & Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), to become more like the Army National Guard (ARNG) in the United States. That way, it forms an effective buffer of civil defense between the NPF and the Nigerian Army.
The Army National Guard (ARNG) in the United States, is an organized militia force as well as a federal military reserve force of the United States Army. It is composed of two administrative components: The Army National Guard of each state in the American Union, including most U.S. territories and the District of Columbia; and the Army National of the United States (as part of the federalized National Guard. In other words, while the federating states can have authority over their state National Guards, to deal with immediate issues within their jurisdiction; the Federal Government can supersede that authority by federalizing the National Guard in any state of the Federation; based on the nature and scope of the problem on the ground. A summary of the benefits of transforming the Nigerian Security & Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), into an Army National Guard, modelled after that of the United States National Guard, are as follows:
· It will greatly enhance the policing capabilities of the NPF, without involving the Army.
· It will free the National Army from performing police/civil defense functions, which will allow the Army (and the other arms of the National Armed Forces: Air Force & Navy), to focus on developing the capabilities of the National Armed Forces to defend the nation against foreign attacks.
· It will provide provisional employment for hundreds of thousands of youth, who will serve on the proposed National Guard Reserve. Although members of the proposed National Guard will not be on full salaries, as if they are full-time employees; still, they will be earning paychecks they would not have otherwise.
· Members of the proposed Nigerian Army National Guard, will only be called up as and when the situation demands, otherwise, they go about their normal civilian preoccupations.
· Because they are a para-military organization, they will be trained not only in the usage of weapons, but drilled in standard military requirements of discipline, command and control.
· The proposed Nigerian National Guard will serve as fertile ground for the socialization of the youth, from every nook and cranny of the Federation, into nationalistic pride and commitment to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
· The proposed Nigerian National Guard, will greatly limit, if not obviate the need for community and state vigilante groups; lessening, if not eliminating the danger of losing control of fragmentary armed groups capable of “doing their own thing.”
By means of the foregoing: (1) Auditing the plethora of “national security” apparatus Nigeria has spawned in the last 30-plus years, in order to eschew overlaps and redundancies in jurisdictions and functions; (2) Alleviating the National Defense Forces — especially the Army — of law and order police functions, by enhancing the policing capabilities and efficiencies of the NPF, by creating an American-style Army National Guard; and (3) Adding the component of a military-industrial-complex of a robust R&D, to the national defense architecture or infrastructure; it will become possible to plug the holes or missing links in Nigeria’s National Defense System, as well as in its domestic law and order system.
