Your Excellency, Professor Yemi Osinbajo,
You have, no doubt, a reputation to protect against agencies under your supervisions that are engaged in unethical practices and gross misconduct including corruption, nepotism and victimizations of civil servants while dropping your name in their misdemeanour.

As a respected Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), a distinguished professor in law, you are admired for your humility, simplicity, charisma and accomplishments in life.

I write this memo to draw your attention as the Chairman Governing Board of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) and that Governing Council of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), by virtue of your office, as the Vice President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Let’s me first draw your attention to a recent worrisome development when a Niger Delta lady, Bolouere Opukiri was sacked from Presidential Amnesty Office for allegedly criticizing you. It was claimed that she had described you ‘a novice’ in the social media for travelling out of the country at a time President Muhammadu Buhari was receiving medical treatment in London and tension was flaring between the executive and the legislature when you were Acting President. The dismissal of South-South lady was triggered after a subtle query was issued by one of your aides to her boss (Link: https://goo.gl/UkX3kV).

Your Excellency, as you are aware, a widow from North-Eastern Nigeria and a chartered Accountant of repute, Mrs. Maryam Danna Mohammed was also wrongfully sacked as the General Manager Audit of NDPHC after she exposed some irregularities in the agency (Link: https://goo.gl/H1UKht).

Described as an anti-corruption crusader and whistle-blower, Danna’s case was reviewed by the Attorney General of Federation, Abubakar Malami who recommended her reinstatement (Link: https://goo.gl/oPWFso). The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria also passed a resolution for her immediate reinstatement after a public hearing (Link: https://goo.gl/ZWyAed). Surprisingly, neither the legal advice from the number one Law Officer of the Federation, nor the resolution of the Federal Legislators were honored or obeyed as your Office that supervises NDPHC is yet to reinstate the innocent Northern woman.

Your Excellency sir, more disturbing are the scandalous activities taking place in NEMA, another agency under your supervision. The House of Representatives’ Committee on Disaster Management spent months at public hearing in unravelling some sickening corrupt practices under the current Director General of NEMA, Engr. Mustapha Maihaja (Link: https://goo.gl/yriC5p).

Some of the allegations against the NEMA boss included but not limited to the following: Payment of N400 million Demurrage for N414mn Chinese Donated Rice; diversion of over N15 billion fund approved for food intervention in North East, Flood Intervention in 16 States and relief for Libya returnees (Link: https://goo.gl/d5wwC7) .

In less than a year of his tenure Maihaja has grounded major operational tools of NEMA including Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU), Emergency Response Vehicles, Air Ambulance and the Helicopters.

It may interest Your Excellency, to note that when Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo were Vice Presidents and Chairmen of NEMA’s Councils at different times, their names were never mischievously dropped for ulterior motives because the agency’s bosses then AVM Mohammed Audu-Bida (Rtd) and Mohammed Sani-Sidi took responsibilities for daily activities and media enquiries. Those periods, NEMA organised capacity building programmes for emergency workers; trained volunteers, attended swiftly to victims of disasters, provided timely relief materials to distressed people; undertook regular assessments of disaster scenes, acquired and utilized modern tools for emergency response including Mobile ambulances and Multipurpose Emergence Response Vans among others. The morale and enthusiasm of staff were never dampened but high with motivational incentives.

Unfortunately, in less than one year of the appointment of the current NEMA’s boss, Engr. Mustapha Maihaja none of the recent past glories is functioning optimally. Your Excellency sir, your swift intervention last year curtailed the indefinite strike when you compelled Maihaja to negotiate with NEMA workers at a meeting held with officials of the Ministry of Labour. Most of the agreements reached at the meeting are yet to be implemented. For the first time in the history of NEMA, the staffs of the emergency agency are currently on a nationwide strike as you read this (Link: https://goo.gl/XiuymP).

Like the case of Maryam Danna of NDPHC, when some Account Officers raised eyebrow on the unethical practices in NEMA, rather than become sober and change his attitudes, Maihaja recommended and suspended top management officers of the agency and redeployed Account Staffs to other Departments and Zones. In fact, it is a case of a hunter being hunted as the same NEMA boss relentlessly sent names of directors and other officers of NEMA to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation and prosecution on baseless allegations (Link: https://goo.gl/Kv1Ex6).

Concerned about the arbitrary and illegal suspension of innocent and competent NEMA officers who have spent over 10 years in the service, the House Committee on Emergency Management of the National Assembly passed a resolution for their immediate reinstatement. Your Excellency, Mr Vice President, the suspended NEMA directors and officers are yet to be recalled and reinstated (Link: https://goo.gl/3nNF2V).

Your Excellency Sir, the panful irony in these sad developments, especially for some of us that could read between the line is that your name and office is constantly being mentioned in this unfathomable arbitrariness and dirty politics. The unfair dismissal of Bolouere Opukiri Boro from Presidential Amnesty office, the wrongful termination of the appointment of Mrs Maryam Danna from NDPHC and the unlawful suspension of NEMA directors from office among others were all linked to your exalted office which can rubbish your reputation as a legal luminary who knows the law of due process.

Your Excellency, may I strongly suggest to you, as a man of God and lawyer, to assign an independent panel to review and scrutinize some of those cases to realise terrible mistakes made in the name of your office. If these mistakes are not corrected, I am sorry to say that your name may go out in history as the Vice President who chairs boards of agencies that victimise and destroy the career of innocent and competent public officers through illegal and arbitrary means by his political appointees in deliberate effort to cover up their mess.

Yushau A. Shuaib
www.YAShuaib.com
yashuaib@yahoo.com
Abuja

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Dasuki Osinbajo Monguno

By Yushau A. Shuaib

The Vice President of Federal Republic of Nigeria is not just an ordinary person. Professor Yemi Osinbajo is an accomplished scholar, award-winning legal practitioner, a respected Church Pastor and man of seeming impeccable character. He and his family have displayed enviable character of humility and simplicity.

As the second most powerful citizen in the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Osinbajo serves as the Chief Coordinator on the Economy akin to Coordinating Minister on the Nigeria’s economy. He heads the economic team and to some extent, largely endorses and appoints members into the team.

With such fantastic attributes and excessive power, especially on the economy, one should have expected that he would not behave typical of Nigerian politicians, who, rather than facing and addressing the real economic realities would accuse oppositions or previous administrations for every fault.

While representing President Buhari at the launching of the revised National Counter Terrorism Strategy (NACTEST), Professor Osinbajo repeated the blame-games, the feature of the administration by claiming that the escalation of war on terror was the handiwork of corrupt military officers and political leaders in the previous administration. (www.goo.gl/V212XF)

The blame game as usual continued as he said little in his speech about NACTEST. While castigating previous governments of sabotage, the media is currently awash with a report that a Brigade Commander and some soldiers were selling arms and ammunition to Boko Haram terrorists in the current dispensation. Such reports do not mean that the ongoing military operations are failure. (www.goo.gl/XnPdzx)

It is nevertheless interesting to note that the current National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) went straight to the point to disclose the benefit of the revised NACTEST strategy. He explained what organisations and individuals could do to help in its implementation in order to reduce the risks of terrorism and ensure that people go about their lives freely and with confidence. (www.goo.gl/rUyQz1)

According to Monguno, “NACTEST is organised around five streams aimed to forestall, secure, identify, prepare and implement with key objectives and indicators to effectively ensure monitoring and evaluating successes at each stage.”

Also speaking, the Coordinator, Counter Terrorism Centre (CTC), Commodore Yem Musa, said that ONSA in furtherance of the national counter terrorism efforts, developed the “National Terrorism Levels” document to guide MDAs on measures to be taken on receipt of information on a likely terrorists’ attack.

Musa said that the document, which outlines the alert levels and the actions to be carried out when a terrorism alert level is declared is in 5-levels including: Critical (Red) – Attack is imminent; Severe (Orange) – Attack is highly likely; Substantial (Yellow) – Attack is a strong possibility; Moderate (Blue) – Attack is possible but not likely; and Low (Green) – Attack is unlikely.

What was not disclosed at the launching is the fact that NACTEST was a programme conceived and introduced in 2014 by the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki to counter terrorism under soft-approach programme. While unveiling NACTEST in March 2014, the then NSA Sambo Dasuki said the strategy was developed by his office in collaboration with international partners, experienced academics and selected non-state actors. He said that the strategy was developed taking into account the root causes of terrorism, adding that the approach was to understand the problem in order to apply appropriate solutions.

Dasuki added that NACTEST focused on key points including increasing the capacity of government institutions and relevant agencies in handling extremists. The strategy was developed to offer a key blueprint for law enforcement agencies to combat terrorists.

During an interaction with the media, Dasuki had said that “What we have learnt is that there is not one particular path that leads to terrorism; rather, there are many often complicated paths that led to terrorism. The NACTEST seeks to prevent attacks before they happen by preventing our people from becoming terrorists in the first place.”

The soft approach to counter terrorism developed a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme that is vertical and involves the three tiers of government -federal, state and local. The programme is also horizontal, involving civil societies, academics, traditional, religious and community leaders.

The NACTEST programme utilises existing structures within and outside government to deliver targeted programmes and activities that further the overall objective of stemming the tide of radicalism. The soft approach programmes provide the country a framework that identifies roles and responsibilities of every segment of the society.

With the revised NACTEST document under current NSA Babagana Monguno, there should be a sustained monitoring and evaluation framework that would track the implementation of each stream of the CVE programme.

The revised document is a further consolidation of counter terrorism efforts. It should also ensure that the measures being adopted on counter-terrorism processes conform to dictates of the law and adhere strictly to the rules of engagement and human rights norms as was canvassed in the past.

The current Office of the National Security Adviser must be commended for not only initiating new direction in intelligence gathering and coordinating counter insurgency campaign but also for revising the content of NACTEST to ensure its effective deployment.

It is necessary to caution political office holders to be conscious of their utterances in their blame-games campaigns, especially on security issues. It is also a crime to criminalize innocent officials that are not convicted by a competent court of law. Majority of officers that served in the previous administration are also serving in the current administration diligently and responsibly unless they are recently retired. Terrorism issues should not be politicised, because history is the best judge even if some are forgetful.

Yushau A. Shuaib
yashuaib@yahoo.com
www.yashuaib.com
Abuja

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