BY Kyuka Lilymjok
Two things will define Tinubu’s Presidency as a success or failure: What he does to insecurity and what he does to corruption. Why? Because these maladies are the two burning issues in the country today which if not taken down will take down the country or perhaps better put, will burn down the nation. I see Ribadu as the fire-fighter that will put out the fire of these burning issues. I am moved to do this write up by an article I saw online written by one Ismail Abdullahi from Kano.
According to Ismail, retired military generals as civilian Presidents of the nation had made frantic efforts to tackle insecurity in the country but had failed to.
My question: How frantic was frantic? Your answer is as good as mine.Tackling insecurity is not rocket science. I however agree with Ismail that failure by the retired military Presidents of his allusion to appoint the right people to deal with insecurity guaranteed their failure to deal successfully with the bugbear. I also agree with Ismail that appointments, particularly sensitive and critical appointments, made on the bases of crass lobbying, patronage and bonanza, and not competence, track record of performance or merit guarantee only one thing: failure.
Insecurity, particularly insecurity driven by insurgency, abduction, kidnapping, killing of people and burning of villages at night is one better fought by intelligence rather than sheer military muscles. The failure of previous military Presidents and the military guys they packed into the nation’s security apparatus to deal with this type of insecurity underscores this fact. The kind of insecurity bedeviling this nation can only be successfully dealt with by proper intelligence gathering and deployment, not brute force required in pitch battles which military men are trained to engage. Insecurity in this country is corruption related. Put differently, perhaps more frontally, insecurity in the country is fueled by corruption as corruption, in a material way, is also fueled by insecurity.
The two indeed are detotalised totalities-inclusion does not rule out exclusion and exclusion does not rule out inclusion.Insecurity in the land being driven by corruption, the best hand that can be engaged by Tinubu as National Security Adviser to deal with the blight needs not be a military man, retired or serving but can be a retired police officer or even a seasoned civilian with a track-record of fighting corruption in a convincing manner. Nuhu Ribadu a retired police officer fits this bill. He has done it before and can do it again even better with the maturity he had garnered in the course of the years.
Ismail in his piece contended that the NSA to be appointed should command the respect of military men in the security package of the nation. Ismail, I can’t see the respect Mungono the immediate past NSA who is a retired military general commanded among his military clansmen in the eight years he held sway as the National Security Adviser to Buhari. You can’t wish away result; neither can you question them because it is sacrosanct. My brother Ismail, the military as an institution has failed to deal with insecurity in the land; why not look elsewhere?
I have made the point of corruption driving insecurity in the country earlier in this write up. I made the point earlier in the dark and in the sense of the poor driven by poverty generated by corruption being driven by destitution to abduct and kidnap people for ransoms to relieve their poverty. I am now making the point here in the brightness of daylight and in a direct sense of retired and serving military people colluding with kidnappers and abductors in their brigandage against the nation for payments out of ransoms and for more security allocations to them. Nuhu Ribadu by track record is above this perfidy and shenanigan.
The office in question is a serious one. More serious in the dire straits the nation finds itself. Such an office must never go to a master lobbyist; to a man who had to return to the immediate past government his share of the arms-deal money, a man who in the military has no record of competence or excelling at any task largely because his promotions and appointments were products of lobbying, patronage and bonanza.Character, Ismail from Kano? Your man was not there when character was allocated by his creator. Ridadu Was. Tinubu starting on a weak footing by appointing Ribadu as NSA? Hell, no Ismail from Kano. I will rather say President Tinubu appointing your man will have this result. The camel’s dung here is pointing at the camel. Ribadu has a track record of delivering on his assignment.
Your man is bereft of this record. How then did you come by your opinion? Yeah, I can see how you came by it. The fix is in the fire. But this fix that is in the fire must not be allowed to have its way because if it has its way, it will also put the fat in the fire. Ribadu’s appointment as NSA will be a compensation? By no stretch or curve Ismail from Kano, if by compensation, you mean compensation to Ribadu as a person. Heaven yes, if by compensation, you mean compensation to the nation that has been savagely raped by fellows like the fellow you are making a case for – a case I tell you that is completely out of court and out of hearing by any discerning mind. Mr President should not use the office of NSA as a tool for political settlement? Like hell, he should use it to settle the political, social and economic turmoil in the land.
Ribadu never used his office as EFCC chairman to witch-hunt anyone as Ismail claimed in his write up. Instead, he used it as a witch doctor to deal with witches and wizards let loose in the land by corruption. Rank? Our problem in this nation is rank. The retired police officers of higher rank than Ribadu Ismail talked about in his piece, what is their accomplishments relative to the office of NSA? Just because they retired as Inspector Generals of police, they should be made NSA? What a case to make in our situation! Honestly Ismail, I see any water in the case you are making pouring out of the basket the nation has been reduced to. All Ribadu did as EFCC boss is to investigate financial crime?
This in my view Ismail is what qualifies him for the job under reference. Insecurity in Nigeria as earlier posited is fueled by corruption. A man with a laudable track record both locally and internationally of dealing with corruption so much as to be seen as an anti-corruption Czar across the globe will empty the tank of insecurity of the fuel that drives it; yeah, will take the sails out of the ship of insecurity so that it does not sail into the high seas of freebooting to our grief.
No doubt President Tinubu has been getting it right on his appointments so far. It will be in the wonderful streak of his getting it right in this critical aspect of his presidency that he should appoint Ribadu as his security helmsman.The nation is not smiling; it is bleeding. Let’s get serious. Let’s leave the era of crowning clowns, court jesters and charlatans by putting the crown on the heads of those with a legitimate claim to it. This is what the Ezemo and the Olowu should do
Lilymjok writes from Zaria
