Countering Organized Crime in Nigeria

For the public sector ministries, departments and agencies captured in the National Security Strategy (NSS) 2014 and 2019, what would they say were their observed strengths and weaknesses of the Strategy in their implementation of its provisions in the years the Strategy has been in operation? 

This question should be the basis of any review i.e. weighing the strengths and weaknesses of Strategy and by extension the Policy, or if you like what should be retained, improved and/or added in the Strategy and what should be discarded in both the Security Strategy and Security Policy. 

The impending REVIEW of the National Security Strategy will make it the second time in the history of the national security strategy that this review will be carried out. I am using the “review” cautiously because this was the position of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the Office saddled with this responsibility. However, what happened in 2019 was not a REVIEW. What happened in 2019 was a REPRINT of the Strategy. The only review was the replacement of the name of President Goodluck Jonathan and Colonel Sambo Dasuki with President Muhammadu Buhari and Major General Babagana Mungono.

In 2019, the five year SHELVE life of the NSS expired from when it was first COMPILED in 2014. I am using “shelve” and “compile” cautiously. This is because none of the ministries, departments and agencies of the public sector for whom the NSS should guide was ever part of its conception let alone execution in 2014. The NSS was the handiwork of the staff of the ONSA alongside other agencies with military, intelligence and law enforcement orientation. This was my unfailing position. I have had platforms – in the class rooms and in seminars/symposium/conferences - to challenge anyone that claimed that the NSS was not the singular handiwork of the ONSA et al. On one occasion, a retired director of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) validated my position that the NSS was a compilation of the ONSA and similar agencies.

I talked about “shelve” and this was because beginning from the founding edition of the NSS, the only place – and this was for those that had copies – to find the NSS was on the shelve. The NSS has never guided programmes and projects of ministries, departments and agencies of the public sector let alone the private sector. Indeed and as I observed and argued consistently, not even the ONSA used the provisions of the NSS in running what the ONSA called security in Nigeria. This included the lined agencies in the forefront of the ONSA’S security – military, intelligence and law enforcement. I have never heard the ministry of education, agriculture, external affairs, internal affair, environment, defence, police affairs, works and housing, information etc. cite let alone use the NSS  and its provisions in driving the security policy – if there ever security policy legislation that informed the NSS in the first place - of the State in Nigeria in their affairs. 

One of the biggest drawbacks of security in Nigeria is the lack of Governance for Security and thus Security Governance. This is where the question of policy or policy legislation comes into the fray. Governance of Security would ask the questions what is security, whose security and what is a security issue. Security Governance which is part strategy represents the condition where ministries, departments and agencies of the public sector and the private sector begin to implement the state’s security policy in the programmes and projects. 

The Governance of Security questions have not been asked and answered under civil rule and governance frameworks. This informed my assertion that for now the security in vogue is in the image of the military and military rule. This security type outlived its usefulness nearly a quarter of a century ago. Security is not yet in the image of civil rule and governance even when we are almost a quarter century down the road of this rule type. 

So, where did the NSS derive its policy or horse on security? And why has this security and the genre called national security failed and continues to fail each time it is invoked in the last fifteen years of the emergency called security in Nigeria under civil rule and governance?

If the ONSA and its NSS were ever conscious of the need for policy to drive strategy on the matter they called security, the ONSA took for-granted the view and thus the knowledge that most Nigerians derive from military rule-era socialisation that security was exclusively the name and work of the executive agencies of the military, intelligence and law enforcement (MILE). This is the worst case scenario. The best case scenario was to assume the content of the 1999 Constitution to represent the policy albeit the state’s policy on security.
 
Of the constitutional provisions on security, there were two that represented this belief. These provisions are full of contradictions and ambiguities. The first provision was Section 5 subsection 5 which mentioned national security – viewed as the domain of the military. Perhaps what is the NSS owes its origin and philosophy or nature, meaning and purpose from this national security provision. The second provision was Section 14 subsection 2B which mentioned first security as the primary purpose of government.
 
The performance of these provisions contained major contradictions and ambiguities. Thus national security is the domain of the federal government or what Lamido called the exclusive list represented by the ONSA as the coordinating agency for whatever is national security. This national security is thus the affairs of the military, intelligence and law enforcement. Security on the other hand and for the 36 states and 774 council areas is the only article that associates these tiers with security which they invoke every other time to justify whatever they have in mind. This security volarises the name and work of the executive agencies of the military, intelligence and law enforcement. Nigeria’s elected officials in the legislatures and the executives pursue national security and security as if the constitution that provided for these two was their making. 

Security and national security failed and continued to fail in the last fifteen years because they were not constructed in the image of civil rule and governance. There is a need to construct and resource security in the image of civil rule democracy and governance. The prevailing security was derived in the image of the military, which is an agency of the executive that usurped political power at some point in the evolution of Nigeria. This security was derived from the mandates of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement as enshrined in the constitution and other enabling laws creating these institutions. Under democracy, the mandate of elected representatives is to govern the entire country using all the laws of the country. To this extent, security can not and should not be similar to what is obtained under military and military rule.

In security’s etymologies, security is free from care, something which secure, condition of being secure and feeling no apprehension. When situated under the military, intelligence and law enforcement and under military rule, the performance of free from care, something which secure, condition of being secure and feeling no apprehension prioritised the military’s defence on land, sea and air and in support of civil rule when called upon to do so and for intelligence, the collection and processing of information into intelligence to support strategic policy and tactical operations inside, outside and in military related areas and for law enforcement beginning with the police, it is to ensure public order and protection for persons and property and in the specialised areas designated for the different law enforcement outfit.

In civil rule democracy and governance, security define as free from care, something which secure, condition of being secure and feeling no apprehension encompasses anything and everything that affects individuals and groups wellbeing beginning with food, shelter, health and seeks to free people from most if not all worries, provide people with something which secure, create condition of being secure for people and reduce or eliminate feeling of apprehension among people. 

In this, the role and place of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement can not and should not be superimposed as top on the priority of security. In most Nigerians’ hierarchies of security needs and assuming there is no orchestrated policy of engineering crisis and conflict in the polity and to this extent governance utilise effectively and efficiently human and material resources and deliver benefits to most Nigerians in all spheres, the military, intelligence and law enforcement should be at the bottom of the hierarchy and plays supportive roles based on their statutory mandates in the security needs of most Nigerians.

What is there to review except to reprint the NSS that has been seldom used with the impending exercise is question for the legislatures to answer. The legislatures are saddle with the creation of content for the laws of this country under democracy. Should this process be accomplished in the right manner, it would have to begin with the review of the constitution and/or the creation of a specific legislation on security in the image of civil rule and governance. This legislation would ask and answer the Governance of Security questions – what is security, whose security and what is a security issue? 

The last question which would unleash Security Governance – how can security be achieved -would be the template for the strategies which would be the responsibility of public sector ministries, departments and agencies and private sector organisations to provide in tandem with their readings of the state’s security policy as enshrined in the constitutional review or security policy legislation on the one hand and on the other hand their statutory mandates in the areas of specialisations. 

In what follows, I underscored what I called matters to note in the existing National Security Strategy and matters arising for the scheduled “review” of the National Security Strategy, assuming the exercise is not already underway or even concluded. 

In the former, the include the followings: One, the foundational 2014 NSS was compiled to satisfy the yawning official statement gap on security that regularly confronted Nigeria’s officials at international bilateral and multilateral engagements on the subject of security. The NSS was compiled to save Nigeria’s officials the persistent embarrassment of the lack of official statement on the vexing internationalised issue called security. Two, the NSS was singularly compiled by the Office of the National Security Adviser with assistance from agencies of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement. Contrary to the document’s claim, other institutions were never consulted, and the strategies contained inside the NSS were the views of their compilers for these institutions. Three, the 2014 NSS was built on policy starved security platform that did not provide for governance of security in Nigeria under civil rule and governance frameworks. The nearest to a policy used for the NSS, if it was ever used, was the 1999 constitution. The 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s number one crisis and conflict creating operating framework deliberating instituted by the departing military as their strategy to remain relevant in the civil rule system post military rule and that underpinned the military, intelligence and law enforcement security conception in place. Four, the 2019 “review” of the NSS was a “reprint” of the 2014 NSS. The only innovation was the removal of the name of the former president and his national security adviser for the then sitting president and his national security adviser. Five, the NSS has never been used and is not being used by any public sector or private sector organisation to guide its service delivery. Even the compilers of the NSS – the ONSA and their fellow travelers in the military, intelligence, and law enforcement - have never mentioned, let alone, used the NSS in their affairs. The only time the NSS come alive is on the occasion of the “review” “reprint” five yearly ritual, and its public presentation by Mr. President.

In the latter or matters arising for the supposed proposed “review” of the NSS, the followings counts: One, the strategy should derive from a security policy legislation which should address the four question issues of every policy and strategy. For security, they are what is security, whose security, what is a security issue and how can security be achieved. Two, the 1999 Constitution’s provisions on national security and security should not be the policy framework for security under civil rule democracy. The Constitution contains myriads of booby traps deliberately emplaced to undermine democracy at every turn, thus unleashing the environment enabling the failed and failing military, intelligence, and law enforcement security perspective of the last fifteen years. Three, a security policy legislation should be constructed by the legislatures in the image of civil rule and governance, and this should underpin the making of strategies. The security strategy should be of two types – the general principles type emanating from the administration in power outlining its direction with regard to the state’s security policy and the specialised strategies of ministries, departments and agencies of the public sector and organisations of the private sector saddle with translating the security policy of the state and the government’s direction into programmes and projects within their statutory mandates.

This exercise is, therefore, beyond the powers of the Office of the National Security Adviser. The exercise calls for collaboration between the legislatures and the executives in order to fashion out security policy legislation in the image of civil rule democracy. Beyond taking this road, the Office of the National Security Adviser can go ahead and “reprint” the five year seldom-used and shelve-bound National Security Strategy emblazoned with the names of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu and his national security adviser, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu.

Dr. Adoyi ONOJA is of the Department of History, Nasarawa State University, Keffi.
Matters to Note and Matters Arising for the Impending “Review” of the National Security Strategy 2019 -By Dr. Adoyi ONOJA
