Date Published: 04/28/10

Message to the NSA: Reform Nigeria's Intelligence Agencies Network

Sir: Without an effective sharing process, it is not clear how important information  obtained by federal, state, or local intelligence could be connected to the relevant information held by intelligence wings of other agencies, private sector and potentially point to an impending attack and evil intension let alone deter it, this is the barrier led to recurring of intelligence failed time on domestic security in the past few months, unless truly recognized and checked by federal government it might cause significant grave damage to the nation and her image at global level  as well.

Mistakes were made, some too important to be ignored- notably 24 December,2009 intelligence failure on early warning to put Farouk Abdulmutallab on watch list and apprehended him at the Muritala Muhammed international airport in Lagos, failure of being abreast and ahead of 5 March,2010 bombs attacked near  Delta Government house annex  Warri during amnesty dialogue and again 31 March, 2010 intelligence failure on half successful planned car crashed into an Abuja-bound Arik airplane at the Margaret Ekpo international airport’s tarmac Calabar ,an incident which could have led to a grave damage if the driver eventually ran into the fuel section of the plane.

It ought to be pointed out that intelligence failed time on those exemplifications as a result of anemic in intelligence gathering, untimely availability of accurate or relevant information to analyst as well as decision makers to better accomplish their individual missions, and can’t attitude on sharing of certain intelligence and information of activities by individual intelligence agencies from the standpoint of departmental responsibilities than standpoint of national security which indicates that our national officials  have yet develop standard formal apparatus for collecting, coordinating and synthesizing  information and intelligence between NIA, DIA, SSS  and intelligence wings of law enforcement agencies, Nigerian forces, paramilitary organizations and diplomatic services. And in my view this is our greatest weaknesses.

Therefore it is high time for the office of National Security Adviser (NSA) to come up with architecture in form of clearance house to address information sharing issues with Nigeria’s intelligence agencies. It is important that this is done in such a way as to effectively integrate Nigeria’s intelligence agencies and private sector in information sharing process and how departments will coordinate their various information-sharing initiatives to eliminate possible confusion and duplication of efforts.

Ayodele Paul O, Box 319, Omega Chamber, Ikire, Osun state, ayodelepaulcse@yahoo.com , 08033960987