The high-yielding material benefits accruing to insurgents and kidnappers from their dreaded activities in Nigeria in the last decade acan no longer be seen as stand-alone issues. They have so much infected other people in different activity areas that almost everyone has since developed the tendency to take advantage of every and any opportunity to profiteer. No wonder, one popular cleric once concluded that based on the huge ransom which its practitioners are accumulating, kidnapping could be regarded as a lucrative commercial activity. On their part, expert oil thieves have been allegedly busy devising new methods to ward-off government’s arrangements to block their illegal business, just as other stakeholders in the oil sector are always creating artificial scarcity of petroleum products to maximize profits during end of year festive seasons. But except concrete measures are put in place by different societal institutions to stop the trend, the hardships of Nigerians may increase with time. This is why last week’s bold steps by the Department of State Services DSS to halt this season’s artificial scarcity of fuel should be commended.
It will be recalled that as soon as the month of December 2022 surfaced, there were visible signs that another season of exploitation had come. Fuel scarcity immediately commenced with endless queues noticed along many roads in the nation’s major urban centres thereby worsening the fragile economic situation of citizens. The DSS predicted rightly that if nothing was done about the development, the ensuing tension could easily lead to civil unrest. The service therefore held a strategic meeting with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and other relevant stakeholders in the oil industry and handed over to them, a 48-hour ultimatum to end the scarcity. Surprisingly, many fuel stations complied and began to dispense fuel to motorists instead of hawkers as they were used to doing. Knowing that the DSS is an intelligence agency, it was easy to guess that the service may have gathered ample intelligence which informed the decision to issue the warning. In other words, both the stakeholders and officials of the DSS were positioned to know the real cause of the artificial scarcity which the service firmly deprecated.
In addition, many fuel stations began to operate 24 hours’ service making it possible for the queues to reduce drastically. The situation may not have been fully normalized, many days after, but not many are in doubt that the DSS used its rather loud body language to make the point that the problem was not inadequacy of fuel but hoarding of the product. This was confirmed by the fact that apart from a few mundane murmurs by stakeholders in Ogun state, compliance with the order was clearly well above average across the board. Were the marketers expecting members of the public to believe the hoax that the DSS merely bullied them into selling their products below cost price and thus at a heavy loss? Of course, such a story would in all fours be identical with the story of ‘Alice in the wonderland’ hence many groups lauded the service for its proactive intervention which gave a ray of hope that Nigeria’s intelligence community has the capacity to defend ordinary citizens. As the House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence aptly observed last week, nothing stops the DSS from serving as an effective intelligence agency.
Speaking during an oversight function at the DSS headquarters in Abuja last Tuesday, Sha’aban Sharada, the chairman of the committee credited the current relative reduction in banditry, kidnapping and terrorism to the input and new approach of the secret police. What must necessarily be added is that the service must not rest on its oars considering the numerous threats to national security by different actors. The DSS must develop a far more robust approach to national security than the current emphasis by government in which national security is seen as a subject of weaponry and warfare – a subject which in reality, transcends defence and military might. While it is true that security is easily more identifiable with external coercion because of its visible impact, there is doubt if it is more crucial than the consequences of internal disequilibrium in a nation’s social system. In other words, security has a multi-dimensional context which includes other areas such as job security and indeed food security; otherwise, a national security policy would be of no use to the unemployed, displaced and hungry citizens that constitute the majority of our people.
It is important to draw attention to the numerous activities which those who run services in Nigeria use in frustrating citizens on a daily basis. While such activities are probably too numerous to list, the disposition of airline operators stand out among others because of the transparent collusion between them and the public agency set up to regulate the sector. Everything in our airports points to a deliberately disorganized business designed solely to exploit the people. Last week, a popular airline deliberately waited until it was too late to fly into Benin. Expectedly, it could not land as the airport had officially closed only to return the Benin-bound passengers to Abuja at night. Alas, there was no arrangement on ground as is the standard practice in stable climes to care for the stranded passengers till the next day. But on board every flight, there is repeated announcement of the dos and don’ts by travelers which are attributed to so called global best practices. In honest, Nigeria’s aviation industry as a whole is miserable. At the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja, the elevators and lifts have been in disrepair for longer than makes sense with an unending poster of repairs in progress! Who are the lethargic bodies perpetrating these and who can stop them?
With the 2023 general elections fast approaching, our electoral body, INEC is left to cry for help over daily attacks on her electoral installations. The attackers labelled as “unknown” are having a field day as if they are ghosts. This is why the DSS must remember that every appreciation of its achievements presupposes that she would do more work to help Nigeria grow, constantly nipping in the bud, whatever can lead to civil unrest. As the proactive intervention in the case of fuel saboteurs has shown, the case of attacks on INEC facilities requires strategic information gathering. No other agency than the DSS whose operation is predicated on intelligence is better positioned to take control. If left to the police with its inadequate human and material resources which are also greatly deployed to VIPs for guard duties, no favourable results would be achieved. It is therefore not irrational to request the DSS to get more committed to using its intelligence template to further complement the rather analogue policing system of the nation.
Those who know Yusuf Bichi, as a man of honour, vision and integrity say it was a wise decision to recall him to head the DSS. Other groups particularly public relations practitioners who know Peter Afunaya, the spokesman of the service can readily testify to his strategic and crises communication expertise. With the two officials as a reference point, it is easy to describe the face of the DSS as proactive and dynamic. However, the agency spent ample time the other day persuading Nigerians that public impressions of the harassment of Nigerians by operatives of the service are untrue. With its current posture, it will require no further claims or denials as to what it stands for if it can distance itself from negative practices of old especially the gross abuse of the Cybercrimes Act by governors who use security operatives posted to their offices to lock-up political opponents and critics. The agency can hardly become known for all its salutary activities if its officials remain tools of persecution of Nigerians. There is no better way to end this piece than by commending the DSS for its proactive intervention in the rascality of oil marketers while urging her to sustain the approach and extend it to other areas of human affairs in Nigeria.
