By Lanre Babafemi

FOR all it may be worth, the rift between the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.) and the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Malam Abba Kyari, is very dangerous, to say the least. One would imagine that the president himself is not happy with this situation. But the point is that he must act to set matters aright.

According to a leaked memo to the president, which has now become public knowledge through a scoop by an online publication, Premium Times, the national security adviser, NSA, had alleged that undue interference by the chief of staff, CoS, on matters of national security was slowing down meaningful gains that the President had sought to achieve, especially in the fight against insurgency, terrorism and sundry security challenges in the country.

In the leaked memo, Monguno had directed service chiefs to desist from taking further directives from Kyari. The NSA, in the said memo, had alleged that the CoS’s directives to the service chiefs were sometimes issued without the knowledge and approval of the President, a practice, he said, had added to the government’s failure to contain insecurity.

One is holding his breath with the hope that the president will not remain silent over this grave and untoward development. The truth is that the power tussles inside the highest office in the land shows that all is not well with the country. There are the signs of internal decay, the dry rot of apathy and failure of leadership.

Matters of security of the nation is the exclusive preserve of the military and other civil internal security agencies. Issues relating to the usurpation of the powers of the NSA should not have arisen in the first place as the duties of the CoS and those of the NSA are clearly stated. Whereas the CoS is largely a personal appointee of the President with the primary responsibility to oversee the domestic and official staff of the Presidency and the State House, the roles of the NSA are clearly stated in the Constitution.

Which is why the appointment of the NSA hardly requires the screening and confirmation of the Senate. As the alter-ego of the security apparatus of the country, the NSA as it were, should be someone with sterling and impeccable military credentials and background.

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It is against this backdrop that almost all analysts who have commented on the feud between the CoS and the NSA tend to blame the former for the smouldering relationship and lack of cohesion in President Buhari’s kitchen cabinet. But PMB, on whose desk the buck stops, should carry the bulk of the blame in the mass hysteria afflicting the nation.

Probing deeply into the allegation by the NSA that the frequent meddlesomeness of the CoS in matters that are purely military in nature had adversely affected the prosecution of the war against the Boko Haram uprising and sundry security threats bedevilling the nation, one is inclined to opine that the military remains the praetorian guards of the nation’s territorial inviolability.

Therefore, the CoS who is not trained in military procedures should allow the NSA to oversee the management of our strategic military institutions because he is the one that would be held accountable should anything go wrong. Monguno is reputed for his urbane and cosmopolitan style in cautioning against the excesses of the service chiefs and others under his purview.

Nigerians are of the view that the CoS is not only usurping the powers of the NSA but also those of the President. Many analysts have observed that the NSA must be a very patient fellow to have tolerated the encroachment into his statutory powers for more than three years. The CoS knows that his responsibility does not include supervision of security matters. In the United States of America from where we copied our executive presidential system of government, the national security adviser has a unique role in the coordination and prosecution of all security and anti-terrorism matters.

Given his qualification and the strategic portfolio he supervises, Monguno has a legitimate case against Kyari notwithstanding he apparently just realised lately how badly the security apparatuses have been used by a man clearly not qualified officially and technically to command the service chiefs.

Monguno, a retired Army major-general, was the Chief of the Nigeria’s Defence Intelligence Agency. He was on merit appointed to advise and manage our security bureaucracy. But a lawyer who is supposed to concentrate on his job as a chief aid to the president has been overlapping.

The weight of guilt is obviously on the shoulders of the CoS because while Monguno’s leaked memo details Kyari’s meddlesomeness, it is not the very first time we are reading or learning of the CoS overreaching himself and trying to behave as if he is the boss of even the ministers. It took the courage of the NSA to call him out and hopefully, this will bring these excesses to an end.

According to John Locke, the famous English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, whoever is given absolute power is liable to abuse it. That is the situation playing out in Nigeria’s Aso Rock, today.

The best way to resolve the altercation would be for Mr. President to direct his chief of staff to immediately halt his undue encroachment into the office of the NSA. The NSA should supervise the service chiefs and not the chief of staff. This simple, logical clarity should guide the reporting template in the presidency.

Babafemi, a security analyst, wrote from Abuja

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