By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been advised to resist the planned restructuring of the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) by certain politicians and some people in his government.
The Non State Actors Consultative Forum (NOSACOF) which made the call, noted that the present push for a bill to make the National Assembly change the provision that establish the office of the NSA and allow it to recruit and establish own staff was ill informed and can set a very bad precedence.
In an open letter to the President dated 9th January, 2024, the FORUM Convener, Abdulrazaq Alkali argued that the end product of the bill is aimed at re-structuring the office of the NSA into an agency or parastatal with unlimited privileges over the already existing intelligence agencies such as National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the Department of State Service (DSS), and Military.
According to him, “this has the potential of creating many overlaps in the functions of these agencies and will further widen disunity, rivalry and lack of synergy between the various security agencies”.
Alkali further pointed out that presently the NSA has been the fulcrum of maintaining and enforcing co-operation between the security agencies, adding that one key component of its success is due to the fact that it derives staffs and collaborations from the various security agencies, such that the agencies do not see the office of the NSA as a rival agency.
“First and foremost, passing this bill will mean that the overall office of the NSA infrastructure will have to be overhauled to avoid conflict with the sections of the constitution that establish it or the section of the constitution will have to be changed to accommodate the bill.
“Also, the end product of the bill is re-structuring the office of the NSA into an agency or parastatal with unlimited privileges over the already existing intelligence agencies such as National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the Department of State the normal practice is that the NSA can obtain trained and experience staffs from the security agencies (i.e., staffs who already trained and experienced to fill into national security roles).
“Thus, restructuring the office of the NSA into an agency and allowing it to recruit its own staffs at present will very much reduce the efficiency in the operations of the office of the NSA. This is because the office of the NSA will not be able to fill the roles with candidates of the desired expertise and speciality, it will end of spending years (may be decades) and billions of Naira to train these staffs to the desired level of competency and the other security agencies will be reluctant to share staffs with the NSA as they will feel they are no longer stakeholders in the office of NSA.
“With the current security and financial challenges bedeviling this country, this is definitely a wrong move and a wrong timing as well. Mr. President, the office of the NSA is known to be one of the only offices that work with highly professional and skilled staffs extracted from the various security agencies mainly based on merit, skills and capacity. READ ALSO:
- Police probe alleged assault of inspector by area Commander
- NURTW member shot dead at Lagos bus stop, three others injured
- Nine killed in crash involving bus, truck
- NAF crash: Ondo deploys medical, rescue teams as search continues
- Ondo govt traces Alagbaka offensive odour to poultry, goat farm
“If allowed to follow the route of the other agencies and parastatals, there is the risk of politicizing the agency through biased and unjustified recruitments as witness in many government agencies (including some security agencies) and if this happens in the office of the NSA it will not serve the interest of our national security.
“Mr President, the onus of making the right decisions about our country rest on your shoulders and I am confident that you will not allow such dubious bill to be pushed through using your name and or support”.
