On the currently trending issue of the alleged reckless disbursement and squandering of the national patrimony by the immediate past National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, the outrage being currently expressed by most Nigerians seems patently hypocritical. We are suddenly acting as if we had not been aware that both at the federal and state levels, a lot of atrocities are being committed under the guise of our nebulous definition of “security.”
Why are we suddenly pretending not to remember that for some time now, the office of the NSA has been the big pipeline through which most activities of the state pass, and we are told that we are not allowed to know what passed through, because security issues are – or should be – out of the purview of the public.
Security issues, as we have been made to accept, are the preserve of a very small cult of people at the very top of affairs at the federal and state levels. So, why are we pretending surprise and anger that another NSA had access into the deepest recesses of our coffers and was spending it as he willed, much like a drunken sailor?
Undoubtedly, we had borrowed the concept of the NSA from the Americans, whose system we have been aping most sluggishly, but without accepting to submit ourselves to the very stringent transparency rigours of that system. From my research, the Office of the NSA was not always a part of the US presidential system until in 1953, when Robert Cutler was appointed as the first one to advise the President on national security issues. Incidentally, following the start of the Cold War, the National Security Council was created under the National Security Act of 1947 to coordinate defence, foreign affairs, international economic policy, and intelligence and at its head was the NSA.
I started hearing of the NSA in the Nigerian sense earlier, but not until my business brought me very close to the seat of power at Aso Rock during the Abacha days, did I come face to face with the enormous powers which the NSA – then former Police Commissioner, Ismaila Gwarzo – wielded. In fact, the NSA was all in all, in that anybody who needed funds for anything then – ranging from sponsoring propaganda, rallies, travels, articles in local and foreign newspapers, students union affairs, market women, sponsorship of faith based activities, labour matters, etc, etc. Name anything then, the NSA would handle it.
When I timidly inquired to know under what budgetary headings the ONSA sourced the huge sums it disbursed daily, I was told that it was from the head of state’s security vote. To me that was enough, even though I was baffled by the stories I heard to the effect that the ONSA could requisition funds directly from the CBN, especially when I noticed that trips undertaken by government were funded with crisp travellers’ cheques. I assumed then that since the military government was an unusual type of system, a lot of irregular things were possible.
When at the death of Abacha and especially at the arrival of democracy and Obasanjo’s administration, a lot of dust was raised about the dizzying sums of money that were said to have been stolen, I was convinced that much of that loot must have escaped through the unaccounted-for funds that passed through the ONSA.
However, even if one had no way of knowing if the ONSA had been sanitized or if its funds had acquired better transparent ways of being monitored by subsequent administrations, it was striking that each of them kept the NSA, which continued to be one of the most powerful people in government, not necessarily because it was very high up in the scheme of things, but most probably because it had the largesse to dole out. From Abubakar, through Obasanjo, to Jonathan, all had very powerful NSAs, if only by the positions they had held in the military before being picked. Yet, this ‘power’ was derived from the President, as the NSA was just one of his aides.
The definition and ramifications of ‘security’ must have different meanings to the Americans as it has for Nigerian leaderships. In Nigeria, our NSAs have always been drawn from the Military, the Police or the security services, while in the United States; they had mostly come from the academia or the public service. Not discountenancing the fact that great military hands like Collin Powell was the NSA under Reagan between November 1987 and January 1989. But there have been more civilians like Susan Rice who is the current NSA.
Obviously, the definition of ‘security’ in Nigeria is narrower in scope than elsewhere, otherwise, Nigeria would have opted for people with wider scope of appreciation of the ramifications of the society to advise the president on security which has assumed wider dimensions than just arms and ammunition.
The choice of Sambo Dasuki must have been necessitated by the need to bring someone on board who should have better understanding of the Boko Haram scourge, due to his professional and socio-cultural backgrounds.
Many Nigerians remember with joy the claim in some quarters, soon after he got into office, that he had phone numbers of most of the bosses of the Boko Haram. But ironically, the Boko Haram scourge got worse under his charge, mainly as many people claimed, he was distracted by other weightier occupations beside the security over which he was meant to superintend, and might not have given the insurgency his full attention.
Up till today, there are still those who insist that it is the responsibility of the Defence Ministry to source and purchase arms and hardly that of the ONSA. But, from the revelations, that seems to have been the major preoccupation of Dasuki’s office, to the effect that he was alleged to have requested for and received unspeakable sums of money, which if deployed to arms purchase, should have driven Boko Haram insurgents into the desert several months ago. Instead of that, the NSA was alleged to have obtained and disbursed these dizzying sums so obtained to other sources, while our troops fought with bare hands.
Even though most of what are in the open still remain allegations, as Dasuki has either denied them through his lawyers, or said that he was still going to say his bit. But it is striking that unworthy beneficiaries like Raymond Dokpesi, who allegedly scooped the whopping sum of N2.1billion has, tongue-in cheek, accepted culpability. Most Nigerians are angry with Dasuki not just because he wasted money as some NSAs before him had done, but what he spent in other things was tantamount to blood money. He allegedly collected money under the guide of equipping soldiers fighting in the war fronts and lavished it elsewhere, and by so doing, putting the lives of our gallant troops in danger.
There is no way paying for television campaign placements could have equated to security not become more important than the lives of our soldiers. Nor could the whopping sums allegedly given to Bafarawa for ‘spiritual’ purpose have been excused for being the opportunity cost for the lives of the boys in the trenches.
The entire thing was mired in callousness and mischief. While Dokpesi caroused in such heaps of money, the staff of his AIT and their families went for several months without salaries. Ditto for Bafarawa who kept assuring the PDP stooges at Aso Rock that he would sweep his Sokoto State. And drunk with the type of power which only too much easy money can guarantee, the NSA was said to have become a megalomaniac, throwing his political weight around and allegedly intimidating his opponents in Sokoto State. Aliyu Wamakko, the Sokoto state governor was put under such an enormous pressure and threats that he had to cry out publicly.
It is doubtful if the present administration would be able to recover even half of the heavy loot that was allegedly channelled to the undeserving sources from the ONSA. But it would be important to take steps to block such a black hole which seems to exist at the ONSA in future. There is another NSA currently on seat and one wonders how he sources the funds he needs for his ‘operations’ and how he spends it. Habits die hard. If the ONSA has been used to spending unaccounted-for funds, it is not unlikely that the fashion has suddenly stopped.
In the states, the Governors who are claiming to be unable to pay minimum wage to their long-suffering workers have continued to cart home stupendous amounts of money monthly under the nebulous unaccounted security votes allocation. These huge sums they spend as they please, and “wipe their mouth,” as the saying in Nigeria goes.
It is right and fitting to make Dasuki account for what he received, but it would be even better to start plugging the big hole that is the “security votes” now.
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