SONALA OLUMHENSE FROM PUNCH
In August 2024, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, a stalwart of Nigeria’s intelligence community, became the new Director-General of the Department of State Service.
Six months after his arrival, Ajayi is proposing new thinking about Nigeria that suggests the collapse of the government’s traditional security architecture and its responsibility for fixing its growing insecurity.
According to the DSS chief, communities—not the country’s security agencies—should now become the nation’s first line of defence in tackling the current issues.
He made the proposal in mid-February in Abuja in the presence of various current and former security chiefs, including the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, none of whom objected to the smug idea.
“You do not expect the Nigerian Army, police, and SSS to protect every Nigerian,” he said. “It is not going to work.”
We do expect the security agencies to do their work. That is what the constitution provides, affirming that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Not a secondary purpose, but the “primary.”
This means that the security of the people is the first order of business for the government of the federation, which is the level of governance that has—and controls—the security agencies.