A Senate Panel has attributed the problem of insecurity in Nigeria to the failure of the Federal Government to fund the Office of the National Security Adviser since 2015.
The Senate Adhoc Committee on Nigerian Security Challenges in its report presented for consideration added that the alleged non-funding of ONSA since 2015 has undermined the effective performance of its coordinating function in the security architecture, which has led many agencies to question its authority .
The Panel also revealed that the law governing the operation of the three intelligence agencies: Department of State Services, National Intelligence Agency and Defence Intelligent Agency, is very defective and clearly responsible for the failure to define their functions, boundaries and relationships with one another.
The Committee added that most security agencies are operating in isolation with very little, if any, coordination among them.
The report, presented by the Senate Leader, Senator Abdullahi Yahaya, reads: “Almost all the Institutions have weak and antiquated legislations, most of which were done either during the colonial era or under military administrations and therefore do not reflect the challenges of the moment and the desire of the democratic dispensation.
“There are very ill-defined operational boundaries and overlapping jurisdictions among the Security Services, leading to confusion in priority setting, platform acquisition, training, direction and general orientation.
“There is a lot of internal incoherence and inter-personnel conflict which have led to a lot of antagonism within the Security Organizations. The absence or inadequacies of effective corrective mechanisms within those institutions allowed inter-personnel disputes to fester, thereby undermining the operational efficiency of the services.
“Most of the Agencies are operating in isolation with very little, if any, coordination between them. This most unfortunate situation can be seen from the recent face-off between the office of the IGP and the Police Service Commission, which degenerated into open litigation in the law courts.
“Most recently, the public release of letters from the NSA’s Office to the Service Chiefs discountenancing their engagement with the Chief of Staff to the President bordering on security matters, is a loud testament of the level of disharmony and inter-personnel conflict and intrigues within the nation’s Security and Defence establishments.
“Inter-Agency rivalry and endless battles of supremacy have undermined operational effectiveness. This has worked against cooperation, sharing of information and effectiveness of intelligence and operational platforms for coordinated internal security operations.
“The alleged non-funding of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) since 2015 has undermined the effective performance of its coordinating function in the Security Architecture has led many agencies to question its authority and relevance in various fora thereby adversely affecting inter-service cooperation and Intelligence Sharing.
“The law governing the operation of the three (3) intelligence agencies, i.e. Department of State Services (DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and Defence Intelligent Agency (DIA). is very defective and clearly responsible for the failure to define their functions, boundaries and relationships with one another.
“There is very little effective and committed leadership to guide, motivate and focus the security institutions on the challenges of their responsibilities, and how to go about fulfilling them in a creative, innovative and cooperative manner.
“The general absence of a performance, monitoring and evaluation mechanism within the Institutions and Services have undermined discipline and due diligence in the conduct of Security related operations.
“Allegations have been rife that the quest for personal wealth acquisition has undermined institutional coherence and discipline and resulted in allegations of wastages of funds and squandering of appropriated resources. This is one of the sources of unhealthy competition and interpersonal rivalries within the various services.
“The Security Agencies tend to acquire modern technology and other force multipliers in isolation which resulted in the multiplication of incompatible platforms belonging to the different Arms of Services. This affected mutual beneficial relationship and coherence of security operations.”
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