Northern Leaders, Others Hail NSA, Minister’s Sack

THE Arewa elders, youths and Northern Civil Society Coalition yesterday applauded President Jonathan’s sack of erstwhile National Security Adviser (NSA), retired General Andrew Owoye Azazi and the Minister of Defence, Dr. Mohammed Haliru Bello.

They said that the Federal Government’s decision “heralds a new path to genuine fight against the state of insecurity in the country.”

But sources noted that in appointing Col. Sambo Dasuki as new National Security Adviser, Jonathan might have tactfully put the search for a solution to the Boko Haram menace on the laps of northern leaders.

Sambo, a retired army officer, once served as the Aide de Camp (ADC) to former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd).

He is the son of the deposed Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki. His uncle, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, is the incumbent Sultan of Sokoto.

Apart from being a northerner, Sambo is well-connected to the northern power blocs both by birth and by association. It is, therefore, believed that he would be able to solve the Boko Haram crisis since the group is claimed to enjoy the support of the northern leadership.

It is, however, instructive that Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate, is one of the few areas in the North yet untouched by the menace of the Boko Haram insurgence.

A former Managing-Director of the Security Printing & Minting Company Limited, Sambo attended both American Universities, Washington DC and George Washington University where he obtained a BA in International Relations and an MA in Security Policy Studies, respectively.

He had his military training in several institutions in Nigeria and abroad, including the Nigerian Army School of Artillery, Oklahoma Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, United States.

Dasuki’s appointment, according to a media practitioner, Mr. Wale Adedayo, shows that President Jonathan “is now ready for governance. A core northerner with requisite skills and experience will shine the light into Nigeria’s darkest security corners from Borno and Yobe to Kaduna.”

According to Adedayo, “in this period, the country should look for people who can bring results, and not sentiments, not emotions.`”

“Those asked to step aside are excuses people. They will give you a thousand and one reasons why the job cannot be done. Knowing full well that the buck stops on your table, you should put aside sentiments and emotions aside to get results.

“Too many Nigerians are being killed needlessly. Boko Haram needs to be contained, using every resource at our disposal. It is time to stop the killings and take the fight directly to Boko Haram and whoever is sponsoring them.”

Though the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) said that there was no time the northern elders called for a change of guard in the office of the security chiefs, however the youths, on the platform of the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF), explained that it was a divine intervention that Jonathan has finally harkened to their call for the sack of the duo, to ensure a genuine fight against the present insecurity in the North and Nigeria in general.

Reacting to the removal of Azazi and Bello from their portfolios yesterday, the National Publicity Secretary of ACF, Mr. Anthony Sani, said: “As long as the security challenges in the country have defied solution, the tendency is to assume that the security chiefs have not done enough.

“What the government has done now… is the reaction to the fact that the security chiefs have not performed well and they have not delivered.”

Sani argued that, “no matter the effort they have made, as long as the security challenges are still there, the tendencies is to conclude that they have not delivered.”

“Already, Mr. President has his own way of thinking that, may be, if he changes them, the next people will deliver. That is his perception.

“If the new chiefs can work hard, they can overcome the present problem because there is no problem that cannot be surmounted.

“So, at least, we should live on hope; with the changes made, we hope that the new people will work better. That is our own prayer,” he said.

However, the President of the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF), Mallam Ibrahim Gambo Gujungu, said, “the changes made by Jonathan would improve the security situation in the Nation.”

“You know the majority of Nigerians have lost hope in this government because the government has not been doing anything to address the security challenges,” he said.

“However, with the track record of Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd), who is seen as a no-nonsense military officer, things are going to change for the better in Nigeria.

“With the changes, I am very sure we are going to have a lot of control on the situation we are facing in the country because this man (Dasuki) is an intelligent military officer with a very good track record.

“I am sure he is going to expose those behind the bombings in the country that could not be mentioned by those security chiefs that were removed. He will expose those within and the people masterminding the bombings and creating general insecurity in the country,” he said.

On the Kaduna crisis, Gujungu remarked: “First and foremost, we have condemned the bomb blasts in Kaduna and the reprisal attacks in totality.

“What we are now saying is that the issue of 24-hour curfew will provoke a lot of people. You know that a lot of people here are in utmost poverty, and they have to go out and look for food to eat.”

The leader of the Northern Civil Society Coalition, Mallam Shehu Sani, who also issued a statement on the removal of the NSA and the Defence Minister, said, “the sacking of the National Security Adviser, Azazi and Dr. Bello is a good riddance to bad rubbish.”

According to him, “the tenure of the two personalities at the helm of security affairs of the state is the most disastrous and calamitous in the history of Nigeria.”

“Azazi has within his tenure demonstrated nothing but blatant incompetence and inexperience in handling security issues,” he said.

Sani, who is also the President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), remarked that, “Azazi’s appointment was a gross mistake,” adding that, “Azazi transformed himself from a failed security adviser to an opportunistic political speaker while the nation burns. Azazi’s dismissal is long overdue,” he said.

As for Dr. Bello, Sani described his tenure as “idle, docile, uninspiring and unassuring.”

“However, the sacking of the two men will not in any way end the insurgency and the pervasive insecurity in the country without a comprehensive and sincere dialogue and process that will lead to permanent peace. President Jonathan should do more.”

Former Managing Director of the defunct Daily Times and Special Adviser to former Governor of Imo State on Information, Mr. Innocent Opkaradike, said the problem bordered on the inability of some Nigerians, essentially from the North, to see Jonathan, as Nigerian President, “rather, they look at him as a sectional president of the South-South.

Also, an unemployed graduate, Uzor Okogbue, told The Guardian that the dismissal of the security chiefs would not solve the problem plaguing the nation as a result of incessant bombings.

“The problem is citizenship. Some people are working to make sure that the country is ungovernable because they don’t like the President,” he said.

Source: Guardian Newspaper