It all sounds like deception. In a recent workshop on security, the director-general of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) gave the impression that the Buhari administration just found the formula to unearth terror kingpins in the country.
We might have thought that the Federal Government had turned the corner in its search for the shadowy figures prodding the goons to slaughter.
Even the agency’s director of operations, Joseph Dashwap, reinforced that tone. Hear him: “On its part, the DSS, as the premier domestic intelligence agency saddled with the mandate to detect, prevent and investigate threats to national security, is aware that any effective counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency strategy begins with the recognition that money/logistics are like oxygen to the survival and effectiveness of terrorist organisations.”
He went further to state that the country had enacted legal frameworks to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. But all these are no news. We have had the laws lurking between the covers of dust-covered statute books.
We also know that the technology has been at the disposal of the Federal Government and its agencies forever. Armed with law and technology, what has been missing is the will.
The inter-agency cooperation made it possible to record some gains recently, and we are witnessing what seems a lull in the rapine and hysteria of bloodletting. Many Nigerians are not sure if it is for real or some sort of barbarian siesta to be followed by more savage episodes of murder.
