Buhari shouldn’t play politics with security matters —Agbekoya

President-General of Agbekoya Farmers Association Nigeria, Chief Kamorudeen Aremu, tells TOBI AWORINDE that President Muhammadu Buhari should review the appointment of heads of security agencies

How do you feel about the domination of heads of security agencies by northerners in the light of the forthcoming general elections?

Already, there is a crisis about security in Nigeria and truly, it is northerners that are the heads of all the security agencies. This will have some impacts, and the reason is that some of their colleagues, who are working for them, may be saboteurs. In the South-West, where I am from, the Fulani crisis among farmers continued until we, the leaders of the farmers’ association, gave the order that ‘if they attack you, attack them’. That was when the crisis began to reduce. We have 35 per cent of security guarantee in Nigeria. Kidnapping continues; the crisis of Fulani herdsmen continues because journalists are not covering it anymore.

We had some cases in Saki (Oyo State) just last week. So, there should be no discrimination; no one should say, ‘We are northerners, so all our security chiefs must be northerners’. Anybody who is in charge of security is supposed to represent all Nigerians. That is why I say security in Nigeria today is 35 per cent. The Presidency can say the security is okay. No, it is not okay. So, we need genuine people who know about security. It is not that you will just bring somebody who is below rank and put them in charge. His experience is not up to the demands of the crimes in Nigeria. People are committing crimes all over the country.

What proofs do you have to justify that a balanced geographical spread in the appointment of security chiefs is good for the country?

The former Director-General of the Department of State Services, Lawal Daura, for instance, took advantage of the fact that nobody could do anything about him. That is why he engaged in illegality. Another person that is supposed to be there — we just read in the newspaper — is (Yusuf) Magaji. Why Magaji? He is much lower in hierarchy; he should not even come close to the office. In fact, after the (qualified) Bayelsa man, the next one is one Igbo man. I don’t want to mention their names because I know them. So, I don’t know why we continue to be discriminatory in everything we are doing. We have to be transparent.

I know President (Muhammadu) Buhari is a security man that is supposed to love security. We should not discriminate.

So, what about the DSS?

Honestly, I don’t know what Nigerians are supposed to do about it. But what I know is that security in Nigeria is not up to standard, unless they find a solution to it. The solution is that anybody that is next – either Igbo, Yoruba, a south-southerner, or Hausa – should be the next. They should not just go and take somebody from somewhere and put the person there to be head of security. As we move closer to the elections in 2019, Nigerians are panicking because anything can happen. About Agbekoya, we are particular about security for ourselves in farming because anything that happens to a farmer, we respond even before the police responds.

Should the President appoint other heads of security agencies to balance out the ethnic composition?

That is the best way for the President to go. He needs to resolve it. Think about the thousands of people that died in Fulani/herdsmen clashes. Think about Boko Haram also. In fact, it is doing worse than what we saw them do before. If President Buhari can reshuffle and start again, find people that are serious, people that have experience and are ready to work, he can take them for training so that they can learn more about how other advanced countries secure their countries. We have people with a lot of experience but they will not use them and that is why Nigeria continues to be like this. We need intelligent people to handle the security of Nigeria so that President Buhari too can relax. Now, the people that are there are not capable. I use this medium to tell President Buhari that he should reshuffle the security cabinet and put other new young intelligent people who will work hard. Also, he should separate security from politics because a lot of crimes come from politics.

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