NACTEST: Osinbajo and the Revised
Counter-Insurgency Campaign
By Yushau A.
Shuaib
Osinbajo
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 being convicted by 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
Abuja
No comments:
Post a Comment