₦airaland Forum

So, this afternoon, President Buhari announced his new replacement service chiefs. Well and good.
However, of all the names, a certain Babagana Monguno, the current National Security Adviser, caught my attention. This is because I read something about him in the past which I found quite interesting.
So, I went googling again, and this is what I found, from the oddest of places... Tinubu's The Nation Newspaper, indicting the same Babagana Monguno in 2012 for destroying the Defense Intelligence Agency as well as treating Boko Haram suspects as his paddies!

Read it yourselves:

[size=14pt]DIA and national security[/size]
By Dele Agekameh 25/01/2012 00:00:00


The orgy of bomb blasts and gun fire that rocked the ancient city of Kano last Friday and also reared its ugly head in the wee hour of Sunday in Bauchi State has again brought to the fore the noticeable failure of intelligence pervading the nation’s security network. Unfortunately, for quite some time now, attention seems to have been concentrated only on the inability of the police to rise up to the internal security challenges confronting the nation.

With the recent ‘escape’ of a high-prized Boko Haram agent from police custody, nobody should be in doubt that the police has finally lost grip of the nation’s security, if it had any before. But we all know that the police alone cannot provide adequate security for the nation. That is why there are other sister agencies with clear-cut mandates. One of these agencies which have escaped public binoculars is the Defence Intelligence Agency, DIA. It is, perhaps, one of the agencies that are in a better position to neutralise the current scourge of Boko Haram’s insurgency.

[size=13pt]Regrettably today, the DIA is a shadow of itself. But how did it get to this sorry pass? With the redeployment of Major General Babagana Monguno from the agency to the Defence Headquarters a few months ago, many of its staff breathe the air of respite. Why was it so? Monguno was appointed Chief of Defence Intelligence, CDI, in July 2009 but throughout his tenure, the agency retrogressed in terms of manpower development and relevance to national security. Monguno closed down all the offices of the agency in the states with the exception of Abuja and Lagos. Even at that, the agency’s office in Lagos operates with skeletal staff, most of whom are artisans.[/size]

One of the problems confronting the agency is a sort of military oligarchy that exists in the system. It is a kind of enthroned dictatorship that has been ravaging the place. DIA was established along with the State Security Service, SSS, and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency, NIA, in 1986. The agency was supposed to be modelled after the American Defence Intelligence Agency, comprising 30 percent of serving military personnel and 70 percent civilians. A fundamental crisis erupted when the military started seeing the agency as a “welfare ground”. Those at the helm of affairs, therefore, started their own restructuring by posting military personnel to the agency indiscriminately without any recourse to the act establishing it. In no time, the agency became flooded with military personnel while the number of civilians there took a sharp nosedive. The CDI and deputy CDI have consistently been military officers.

What is happening at the agency is the promotion of military supremacy, as it has long become a custom for the military personnel posted to the agency to rub it on their civilian colleagues that they are “bloody civilians”. The irony of the whole scenario is that the military personnel are visibly idle even though they enjoy the luxury and privileges of being there, including training programmes abroad which have become their exclusive preserve while the “bloody civilians” are denied this opportunity. The foreign training is like “settlement” as they never come back to put their newly acquired knowledge to work, thus leaving vital security assignments that naturally fall within DIA’s orbit for other sister agencies to perform. No wonder the agency has literally been relegated to irrelevance in security matters in the country.

Not only this. Monguno’s era witnessed a gradual decapitation of the agency as the total staff strength fell from about 100,000 to a miserable 10,000. Mostly affected were civilian staff, many of whom were compulsorily retired without any gratuity. As a result of this, many of the victims have dragged the agency to court. Currently, the agency operates about 11 departments. Out of these, only two departments that are less consequential are allocated to civilians. This is breeding a lot of suspicion and animosity between the military and civilian staff of the agency.

Monguno’s tenure was an era of terror itself for an agency that could have easily fought the current wave of terrorism to a standstill. His professional background as an architect and someone who had no previous intelligence training must have robbed the agency of the required direction it needed during his tenure. In many instances, instead of a properly coordinated security duties, he usually resorted to ad hoc arrangements which exposed his naivety. During the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan on May 29, 2011, it was a fidgety Monguno who ordered the network providers to shut down Abuja networks for the duration of the ceremony out of fear of terrorists’ strike. He also ordered the closure of the entry routes into the city. The only respite was to allow those who wanted to leave the city to do so.

Imagine the security agencies in say United States closing down Washington for a President’s inauguration even after 9/11 episode. What you have there is total covert operations that have often yielded good results. Such covert operations are alien to the security agency like DIA, which is saddled with internal security network.

Monguno had the exclusive past time of putting fears in the minds of the staff, particularly the civilians, threatening and sacking them at the slightest opportunity. In addition to this, field officers were starved of funds while money was allocated for events that had no bearing with the job of the agency. For instance, during the wedding ceremony of the daughter of AVM Faloyin, his deputy, in 2011, the vault of the agency was thrown open as military officers allegedly flew Business Class to the occasion in the United States with estacodes while ordinary bulbs could not be replaced as money was not released for operations.

If we are to fight the current resurgence of terrorists activities in the country, the Presidency should take more than a passing look at the DIA as a whole so as to enable it to function as it ought to be. One way to do this is to make sure that professionalism is enthroned in the agency. It is good news that the new CDI, Major General S.Y Audu, is an intelligence officer who understands the terrain.

[size=13pt]The tyrannical tenure of Monguno, an indigene of Borno State, may have compromised national security. This is because at the inception of Boko Haram insurgency, those who were apprehended were handled with kid gloves, as they were left in the agency’s visitors’ room instead of cells. This enabled them to move freely and even got to know that the agency had internal problems. It sounds unbelievable that the Boko Haram suspects were being served special meals from Mr. Biggs and others, while Monguno kept referring to them as “friends of the agency”.[/size]

What is needed at this stage is a total overhaul, re-organisation and restructuring of the agency to enable it to meet the exigency of the moment. The DIA should revert to the good old days when its operatives were everywhere. The greatest problem in the security network of the country at the moment seems to be inter and intra-agency rivalry. This may have been responsible for the constant failure of intelligence in the country’s security system.

The security apparatuses need to come together and work for the common good of the country. This can only be achieved through concerted efforts in the area of inter-agencies’ cooperation. The plethora of security agencies too must put their house in order by engaging in confidence building, training in modern crime prevention and detection as well as provision of good working conditions for their operatives so as to encourage them to offer their best for the country.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/columnist/wednesday/dele-agekameh/34414-dia-and-national-security.html

Well, I'll be damned...

cc: Ishilove Lalasticlala, Obinoscopy, Anonimi, Ecoterrors, Firefire, Tonylyte, AgabaI23, BlackPikiN, Sunnybobo3, Sunnyb0b0, TemiTemi1

More revelations

Monguno ni ,Moschino ko All na tools for jihad and radical islamisation of nigeria.

why does it seem like a horror movie is unravelling right in front of our eyes?

The Senate will be needing this revelation.


It is certainly not a good record for such a sensitive position.

Buhari...Boko haram...the same thing

GOOD MORNING NIGERIA!! You can't underestimate the power of the MEDIA!!

One of the many reaons why the President and the Senate President need to be on the same page....else, you gonna hear 'after going thru his records, I think the Neys have it'
just a small pay back

This report needs verification. I trust PMB anyways to have conducted the proper background checks.

@ odeotito
Sorry to disturb you but food don land again and as usual I'll be needing your take on this



But seriously, this unravelling of buhari's masterplan only bodes ill for Nigeria as a nation, would like to read the nation's take on this appointment today.

Call him whatever u like. Use the media to keep deceiving the gullible ones. Good choice by PMB, he Mongunu will do his best to fight those Killer B.Harams. May God continue to guide u PMB and may God protect you against the same haters that said all bad things against u before during and after the election. PMB is God's own annointed. You don't pick a fight with God.

He knows what is at stake, maybe he is chosen on Shekau's recommendations. Abi?

Without bias to what you have posted, let me just state that this piece in journalistic terms is called an 'opinion'.

Dele Agekameh writes an opinion page in the nation newspapers. The paper doesn't determine what he writes. So, I think Tinubu or the paper should be left out of it.

Opinions are not facts. Trying to play the devil's advocate, some of his decisions like cutting down the civilian population of the agency and closing many state offices might be an attempt to cut waste.

And maybe his strategy of allegedly treating suspected boko haram suspects with some level of 'humaneness' was to uphold their human right which is really an issue today.

I am sure he knows things have changed and would deploy his strategy appropriately.

Not defending him. Just my opinion

Dambazau was accused of mobilizing Hausa Fulani Muslim troops in a reprisal attack against Berom Christians.

Buhari has stated that his new service chiefs where appointed based on "merits" which means he ( Buhari) ignored Military hierarchy to appoint his service chiefs.

This has confirmed what I thought was his reason for delay in appointing his service chiefs which boils down to the ethnicity of the officers in hierarchy.

The sectional bigoted vindictive old fool is on a mission.

This is one of many reasons GEJ conceded defeat.

Almost all the northerners in govt and sensitive security positions are Boko Haram.

They were set to Sabotage his govt even more.

Let enjoy the benefit of one chance

agabusta:
This report needs verification. I trust PMB anyways to have conducted the proper background checks.

trusting someone u've not met before.. The heart of man is desperately wicked