Of rodents, roaches and robbers – Half 2  | The Guardian Nigeria Information

Aso rock

Most recently, the President’s lead driver, Saidu Afaka, a master warrant officer in the Nigerian Army, died under suspicious circumstances at the State House Clinic in Abuja. Afaka allegedly got his client to sign a document that earned him $ 30,000 from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Information reportedly went to the former ADC adjutant to President Col Mohammed Lawal Abubakar, who called on the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate the matter. Afaka was allegedly tortured while in custody at the DSS, requiring his transfer to the State House Clinic, where he died. This is the variety and variety of events at the seat of power.

Early Monday, May 10, 2021, a news report made the rounds that the residence of the President’s Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, in the immediate precincts of the presidential villa had been breached by a stranger earlier that day. Could this have happened in the same villa that you know so well about? Garba Shehu, President’s spokesman, confirms that there was a “stupid attempt” at the COS home at around 3am on Monday morning. A few days earlier, on Thursday May 6, 2021, there was a similar attempt at the residence of Maikano Abdullahi, a retired director of the Ministry of State Services (DSS) who lives on the same street with Gambari. While attempts were made to downplay the incident, it emerged that since two houses were involved in just a few days in between, the burglars had gotten away with generous sums of money.

Attempts have been made to distinguish between private and official residences on the immediate perimeter of the State House and the inner niches of the complex where the President lives with his family and operates from there. This outer periphery is home to part of the Nigerian elite, including incumbent and retired governors, ministers, senior bureaucrats and so on. Access to this outer ring is only granted after thorough examination and questioning at the two public entrances to the villa, either from the direction of the federal secretariat or from the high-profile Asokoro district, the residence of the Nigerian nouveau riche. Both exits are manned by officers from the secret and uniform police and the military in order to underline the security requirements of the place.

Another exit, which was to be the tripod for access to the State House, the gate closest to DSS headquarters, was closed to public use at the height of the nationwide bombings that characterized the Jonathan years. So is the security chain around and around the villa.

Indeed, not only are the entrances to the nation’s seat of power so vulnerable that the confidentiality and security of official correspondence and communications are suspect. Classified information is available for free on the Internet while grocers use them to pack their goods in the city.

Attempts are made to downplay the double residences invasion of two top shots in President Buhari’s government. The impression arises that both incidents are irrelevant. The argument is that the room where the transgressions were committed is not the immediate room of the President and his family. For the avoidance of doubt and without being immodest, I worked as the President’s Advisor in the same Aso Villa in the same Aso Villa in the President’s official secretariat next to his office between 1999 and 2007 so that I have a good idea of ​​the environment and the way it works. This attempt to shed light on this development is at the heart of the matter.

The past few weeks have been the most traumatic and heartbreaking for Nigerians in a long time. Kidnappings in colleges; Killing innocent young people; Kidnappings in communities and on highways, as well as attacks on innocent civilians and security forces across the country, have dominated the headlines. Security goods, with particular reference to police stations and staff, even a general disdain for uniformed officers in all services, are the order of the day. Murderous bandits and crooks enjoy a free hand across the country.

Days ago Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello officially informed Nigerians that the Boko Haram insurgents were only a stone’s throw from Abuja as they camped in communities just two hours away. Indeed, renowned economist and public scholar Professor Pat Utomi warned that Abuja could be kidnapped by insurgents who might as well fly their flag in Aso Rock if appropriate strategies were not employed to decisively eradicate the threat. Whether it was “a stupid attempt” to citizenship the Chief of Staff’s home or it was an armed robbery, the fact that it ever happened is a real concern.

In June 2011, less than a month after Goodluck Jonathan was inaugurated as President, a suicide bomber stood in the convoy of the Police Inspector General, IGP, Hafiz Ringim. His intent was to kill the IGP and topple the Louis Edet skyscraper, the headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Fortunately, the IGP survived the attack. However, one police officer was killed while half a dozen others were injured. Thirty vehicles in the headquarters parking lot were also burned.

When explosives were fired at the Ikeja Cantonment in Lagos in 2001, the earthquakes and thundering reverberations were so loud that Lagos residents in the intertwined communities felt the effects. There were indeed fears for the safety of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was far from the effects over a weekend at his farmhouse in Otta, Ogun state.

Aso Villa occupies a position of awe in the public consciousness. It is the most heavily fortified, most occupied, most guarded, and most secured space per square meter in Nigeria. The brigade of guards, specifically dedicated to protecting the seat of power, is commanded by a senior officer who is not below the rank of brigadier general. Among other things, squadrons of the mobile commando, the anti-terrorist unit and the bomb disposal command come from the police. The DSS has its staff who serve as the President’s bodyguards and are involved in the management of human traffic in the State House.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, journalist, poet, and scholar, is a former adviser to the President. Intelligence agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) deal with the security architecture of the State House. Aside from these state agents, individual homeowners in the private homes adjoining the villa have their own security guards and security surveillance equipment structures.

Therefore, if freelance villains can invade the physical space of homes and offices in close proximity to Aso Villa, then there is a real cause for concern. In light of recent hints about the feasibility of a coup that the general population of Nigerians will resist and whose anarchists are only a stone’s throw away from Boko Haram, this development cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand. These minor things can be “testing the microphones” as a prelude to a much larger action.

Security in terms of the security of the nation has never been so slack and threatened. There is real public concern over the recent demystification of the seat of power and authority.

The government urgently needs to review its safety manual to increase public confidence in its ability to protect the people it vowed to protect. It will be hideous to wake up one day to the news of the occupation of our own Aso mansion by tramps and vagabonds. This is a wake up call.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, journalist, poet, and scholar, is a former adviser to the President.