Security expert and Director General of the International Institute of Professional Security, Tony Ofoyetan, shares his thoughts with AYOOLA OLASUPO on the security situation of the country and the way forward.
What is your take on the suggestion that the Federal Government should regularly carry out forensic audits of all the weapons that move in and out of the security and government agencies?
It’s a global norm. It is not something that ordinarily any serious-minded security agency and government should even be told. It’s a norm that arms and ammunition should have records even down to the bullets. It helps when they (security agencies) are doing ballistics forensics. It helps them a lot in that area, but when they don’t have accurate records, they will not be able to match them. There will not be a data bank for all those arms and ammunition. When they talk about their fight against the proliferation of light weapons and small arms, they will find it extremely difficult once they don’t have such a data bank. You will also find investigation in some areas relatively challenging but it’s a global norm for every serious-minded country.
That is why they will see that if a missile is fired, America knows whether the missile is from North Korea, China, Russia, or Israel because they already have a data bank and know the niche of each country’s brand when it comes to such things. So, these are global norms that ordinarily a government and society serious about fighting the war against terrorism and insurgency will go all out for. It is not just even in terms of a forensic audit of arms and ammunition. We are even talking about personnel audits; beyond even personnel audits in security agencies and paramilitary agencies because as we speak, you will discover that there is a high level of moles and infiltration among these agencies to the extent that it now becomes easy to get first-hand information to ambush military personnel.
Now, an ambush is a subject of what? It’s a subject of intelligence failure. So, when military personnel were ambushed or that they were attacked as targets and they were caught hands down, it means that somebody gave them information. Most information, of course, is from insider threats. Who are those that brought them into the service? Who gave them the reference letter? Why did these people give them the reference letter? What is their background? What is their affinity when it comes to certain physiological understanding in terms of terrorism and the like? Now, these are highly instructive, highly annexed, and very instructive when it comes to the war against terrorism.
Having said so, it is a good conclusion that arms and ammunition audits should be carried out regularly. The issue of ‘there is inadequate funds’ should be out of it. But my main challenge is, ‘What is the level of expertise Nigeria possesses when it comes to ballistic forensics? When it comes to such audits, you don’t manufacture such arms and do you have the history and the trajectory of the movement of arms globally? To the extent that you know the names, you understand the capacity and capability of each of them. These are what forensics will do. So, do we have such expertise now? Do we still have to depend on forensic institutions outside the country? If the answer is to the extent that we have to be dependent, that means that whatever reports, if it is terrorism we are fighting that is orchestrated by foreign governments or allies, I’m sure the work will not be successful.
Human trafficking and illegal migration have been on the rise in recent times. What approach do you think can be applied to stop this?
One of such is when you talk about the fortification of your borders. Our borders are extremely porous. (General Ibrahim) Babangida; the day before he left, he identified officially that we have more than 2,000 illegal routes in and out of Nigeria. That is alarming, that is crazy, and it is in the hands of any serious-minded country in the world to resolve such a problem. Have you ever even thought of the fact that what if you have to fight a war against some countries? On the day of peace, you have not been able to put in order your boundaries, your international routes. On the day of peace, even on the day of war, you will do it.
So, no matter the grammar we use in today’s climate, people are still going through the deserts, people are still crossing the sea and all that stuff, and why it will keep thriving is because those people that ought to do the needful are not doing it. It comes from the law. What is the Customs doing in essence to fortify borderland security? Our borderland security is porous. So, if you ask me, I will tell you that the same thing that is encouraging domestic terrorism in this country is the same thing that is affecting human trafficking, and arms and ammunition trafficking because the routes are not well fortified. They are not well protected.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, recently said that security agencies would be held accountable for every penny allocated to them to tackle the security challenges in the country. Do you think monetary allocations alone are enough to fight insecurity in the country?
I said the annual budget of the Nigerian security agencies and paramilitary, Police, Immigration, Customs, Prisons, all the armed forces; the Navy, and the Air Force combined; it is not up to the budget of county security forces in the US. I’m not talking of a state like maybe Texas or Washington. I’m talking about what you call local government. We must admit something; security is extremely expensive but insecurity is more expensive. Let me give you an example; the Nigeria Police Force as a whole does not have a standard shooting range, and and the Nigeria Police does not have an international standard shooting range. They go for shooting range in the bush, forest, or maybe one or two average ones, and at least the police need to have a shooting range for each of the local governments. That is why you hear issues like stray bullets, accidental discharge, and others.
When we are talking about proper handling of the weapons, it is in your shooting range that you go for all those practical sessions so that you will become perfect that you will be able to shoot a target in a marketplace and hit your target without having any casualty.
But we learnt that the previous governments of former Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari earmarked a huge sum of money for the acquisition of arms and ammunition to tackle insecurity, yet the situation persists. What can you say about that?
The problem is not from the security agencies, it is from the political class. The security agencies have the capacity and capability to prevent any terrorist group or organisation but you are talking of a society where a Sheikh like Gumi can say, ‘I will go there and talk to the bandits and terrorists and they will release the hostages for me. Just pay money.’ That is the business part of terrorism. Now, we are talking of a society where the military formation will arrest bandits and terrorists and the political class will ask them to release them in the name of repentance. We are talking of a society where you will identify sponsors of terrorism and you may even have their names with you and one of the biggest problems you have is making it public. It is the political class that is the problem. It is in the political class that you talk about the idealisation of one’s religious bigotry. We talk about political nepotism, the high level of tribal sentiments. It is the political class that is the problem, and that is funding and sustaining terrorism in this country.
A few days ago, the names of individuals and companies who are suspected financiers of terrorism were released. Don’t you think this should go beyond identifying terrorists and releasing their names?
Do you know their names? Do you know how many Mohammed Musa you have in Nigeria? So at the end of the day, they gave you names to pacify you. Have you convinced yourself that these names are the true names we are talking about? Now, on the names that have been released to the public, have they arrested any one of them? Are you aware of any arrests? Did they inform you that any of them are under investigation? No pictures and nothing to show who is who. I think Nigerians are too intelligent for that childish approach towards the resolution of a critical issue like terrorism in this country. All of us are collectively trying to solve the problem. We should be transparent. I don’t believe in those lists they said they sent or released. I don’t believe in those lists.
How will you react to the gruesome murder of 17 military personnel who were on a peace mission in Delta State?
My first reaction is that I am disappointed in the approach of the military. It’s an old, age-long approach that you applied in Odi in Bayelsa State, South-East and you’re also applying it in Ughelli. It doesn’t make sense. I condemn the brutality, the act of having that bravado and impetus to say that you are attacking military officers. No. All you need to do is be strategic about your discipline. How for goodness sake will they be talking about communal punishment? Some group of people committed a crime then you went to the communities and started injuring people; children, and women. Are they the people that offended them? If the answer is no, then you have not done the right thing.
All I expected them to do is that strategically you will arrest all of them. None of them can ever go scot-free. You can’t kill a military officer and go scot-free. It doesn’t work like that anywhere in the world. Nobody will even encourage any person to do that because even if the person were the devil, they would kill him.
Based on what happened to the military personnel in Delta State, is it part of the responsibility of the military to go for land dispute resolution in communities?
This is not part of their responsibilities, and why I didn’t bother my head about the storyline is because for now, we have not confirmed the actual truth, but we know very well that Okuoma and Okuloba have had land disputes. One is an Ijaw community, and the other is an Urhobo community. Now, there have been inter-marriage over time but there is this issue of groups that are sympathetic to one of the militant groups. Now, for the military to come into that I think what I heard was that the crisis was there. Now, the military tried to say let us maintain the peace and they went there and eventually decided to arrest the community head of Okuoma and the people refused.
They refused because they felt that they (soldiers) were there for peace. What is the issue of arresting or inciting any of their leaders? The next thing I heard was that they shot. They shot and maybe one or two persons died, which led to the crisis, the ambush and the attack of the military and the rest. My only issue is that the military does not have business with land issues, disputes and resolutions. It’s not their business. So, the foundation itself is wrong; however, the intention was right and good to maintain peace. Why will they (militants) go to the extent of ambushing and killing military officers? It’s not an issue to say they did not know they were soldiers, or they thought they were militants. How can you kill human beings? If you think they are militants, why can’t you arrest them? Why did you go to the extent of killing human beings?
Military interference in civilian matters has generated worries among stakeholders that it may lead to anarchy. What is your take on that?
There is no way we would be able to say that the military should not intervene in civilian matters because the police are not capable of handling certain matters for obvious reasons. Out of the 36 states in Nigeria, the military is present in more than 30 states. It is the police that are responsible for internal security. The army is supposed to be in their barracks drinking tea because we are not in any war. Unfortunately, the police are overwhelmed, and the military is not doing what the police should do. You can never separate them from interfering in civil matters. The problem is not that they interfered immediately; the problem is the boomeranging effect of this interference. It is not the first time that the military has been involved in the settlement of communal clashes so that they don’t escalate to become a major security breach. So, they were now at the forefront of maintaining peace. Nigeria is in a peculiar situation that the only thing we can do is to appreciate the military and not condemn them.
Do you also believe in the suggestion that the recruitment of more policemen to relieve the army of internal security matters can solve the security challenges?
Yes! It is okay to recruit and train more police officers. All these organisations and agencies play the role of the police. If you go to Sokoto, Kaduna, Kano states, they have their police. All of them have come to understand that the police at the federal level are already overwhelmed and may not have the capacity and capability to give them the expected results they want. If that is the case and we are already looking at the case, the government is looking at it too.
