Boko Haram: WHY Nyako, Shettima, Ibrahim must step down — Nyiam

Nyako, Shettima, Ibrahim must step down

A member of the National Security Committee, he spoke to Vanguard following insinuations that the committee was opposed to the extension of emergency rule in the three troubled states of the Northeast. He also spoke on other issues. Excerpts:

The committee chairman, Alhaji Gambo Jimeta projected his personal opinion against the extension as that of the Committee on National Security. Alhaji Gambo Jimeta is a very experienced national security man, one of the first NSAs. I must thank him and give him credit for the way he managed our committee which is a very tough committee, given that people came there with very strong mindset which was not easy for him and his deputy to handle.

I think somebody must have mistaken his own personal opinion as the committee’s. The committee at no point discussed anything that has to do with the Presidency and the ongoing state of emergency.

But some members of the committee were right there with him when he was speaking to the media, why didn’t they kick against what he was saying?

I was there and so I wouldn’t know whether the people were members of his committee or guests who came to see him. But I know that if you were to put it to vote, I would say over 65 percent of the members would support the extension of the state of emergency.

Why?

Because most of them being experts and experienced military men know that they know the law and that you need enabling laws to be able to fight insurgency properly. And what the state of emergency does is that it enables the national security officers and the armed forces to be able to perform. So anybody calling for its truncation is indirectly calling for weakening the military resolve.

What exactly do you mean by your call for full implementation of emergency rule?

All I can answer is that the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF has accused the president of being half hearted. They even went as far as saying that he was feeble. I am saying that they could not have blamed the president because the state of emergency the president declared was partial state of emergency.

We require the type of state of emergency we had in Ekiti, Plateau states and the type we had in the West in those days. So you can’t be half hearted in a state of emergency, you either have it or you don’t have it. Because what we have now is that the Federal Government agencies are doing their best and their task is being made difficult by state officials.

But the constitution does not give the president the right to dissolve democratic structures in places under state of emergency?

There is nothing unconstitutional here, the prime objective of the state of emergency is to restore law and order to the society and provide security to lives and property where that is being undermined by any agency or anybody.

They should be kept away from doing that. So it is not unconstitutional. In other words, what I am saying is that it is not unconstitutional. Chief Obasanjo did it during his presidency and that was not unconstitutional.

Compare the Nigerian military of today with that when you were there, would you say that the capacity of the military has eroded since leaving service?

You see, a lot of older officers are quick to claim that their era was better but let me be honest with you, that the military today is better trained than in our time. The military needs to be better equipped and their welfare catered for considering what it suffered from.

As we speak, people who retired from the military, till now, they are being owed over two years of pension arrears. Also, there is a situation where some military officers who left, for instance generals are getting less than what a lieutenant is getting in pension, in other words, a general who was retired some years ago will be earning less than what a lieutenant who retires now will get. I think there is need for that harmonization.

Military pension

And all these things are discouraging for those who sacrifice their lives. In other climes, the military pension and legionnaires are really catered for and we have suggested it in our committee strongly that there must be harmonization of military pensions. Secondly, we recommended that the military should be well equipped and their welfare be catered for, the same thing with the police which is underfunded.

You are making case for the police but agitation for state police did not sail through at the committee level….(Cuts in)
No, I am an advocate of state police because I strongly believe that you cannot have federalism without state police. In fact, in all modern communities, the police in those areas are owned by the communities, it is the basic principle of policing.
Once the police is not domesticated, it is much more an army of occupation and that is why you hear some people refer to our police as an army of occupation. So we really need to go back to the basis of policing by ensuring that there is local participation.

We in the Community on National Security went through this and many people were against it, they had fears about what it could be turned into by certain privileged people in the society but in as much as I still stand for state policing, we came to a compromise that we will have a federal police but decentralized in its operational command and in its administrative management.

What do I mean? We suggested that the president decentralize the police and he should set up a committee that will come up with the structure of how this new structure will be. But some of us, thinking ahead, what we are saying is that there should be equivalent state and local police councils just as it is now with the federal police.
For example, this is my opinion, that the DSP down the ladder in the Nigerian police in any state should be an indigene from those states and we also agreed that in the appointment of a commissioner of police in the state should be done in consultation with the governor.

Do you believe the demand for prisoner swap by the Boko Haram insurgents holding over 200 girls abducted from Chibok, in Borno State is to the best interest of Nigeria?

I will leave that for the government to handle. All I would add is that what is imperative is that the girls must be saved alive. Whatever it takes to achieve that, it is our prayer for the government to do. I am not in a position and I don’t have the facts to be able to answer that.

What I can pray for is that I should be seen to be helping the government to do whatever they can do and I give them that authority to do whatever they can do to save the girls.