The replacement of Lawal Daura as Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS) aka Department of State Services (DSS), offered President Muhammadu Buhari a unique window to shock critics who have defined him as an ethnic champion on the basis of his political appointments. It was an opportunity he blithely spurned.
We concede to the president his power to hire and fire. So there were three options open to him. He could have recalled Daura if he was satisfied that he had been unfairly treated.
He could have retained the Bayelsa-born Acting Director-General, Matthew Seiyefa, appointed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. He was not obliged to do so and there is plenty of precedence to show that past heads of state chose to overlook many who were in similar situation.
Lastly, he could choose to appoint someone entirely new – the option he has now embraced.
By naming Yusuf Magaji Bichi to the position, the president has – in some ways – plumped for a like for like replacement. The new DSS boss is from the Northwest geo-political zone as his predecessor Daura: the former hails from Kano State while the latter shares the same hometown with Buhari.
Both men, interestingly, were plucked out of retirement to head such a strategic security agency. To overlook the entire cadre of serving directors and fish among retirees makes a very pregnant statement and creates room for conspiracy theories.
We may never get an explanation as to the parameters used in making the Bichi appointment, but the choice suggests that the president didn’t consider those still in service up to the job. Or it could be simply down to politics or considerations like personal chemistry.
Perhaps in anticipation of questions as to why those still in service were overlooked, the statement announcing Bichi’s appointment described the new man as a “core secret service operative.” This has led to many sarcastic observations as whether those who have been passed over were mere traffic policemen.
It is unfortunate that Bichi who may be a fine gentleman and eminently qualified for the position, finds himself the object of such contention and scrutiny. Most times we are reduced to assessing suitability for public office on the basis of our ethnic origin or religious beliefs.
It is our reality as citizens of a country with many ethnic groups roped together in a shotgun marriage by outside matchmakers. It is a fact acknowledged by our constitution which requires that merit takes a backseat to ‘federal character’ and national spread.
It is for similar reasons that no party would put two northerners or two southerners on their election ticket. So when presidential aides dismiss those who raise these issues it simply becomes a case of playing the ostrich.
The problem is not Bichi’s qualification for the role. But it is equally not just about the fact that the new DG is a northerner. It is certainly not about counting and balancing those across our regional divide who have headed the DSS. The agitation and debate is not about whether more southerners or northerners have led the service. The focus is not on this agency.
This point needs to be made because in his rush to respond to the backlash that the appointment has triggered, Buhari’s Special Assistant on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, tweeted a historical list of Directors-General who had led the DSS between 1990 and 2018. Of the seven, three were from the south while four are northerners. That slight statistical edge is supposed to silence those accusing the president of regional bias.
But the zealous aide missed the point. Criticism of imbalance in the president’s appointments is a feature that has dogged his tenure from its earlydays. It is mainly about the context and backdrop against which these appointments have been made.
For instance, when those southerners and northerners were heads of the DSS, who were the other service chiefs and what parts of the country did they hail from? Former President Goodluck Jonathan had many failings, but he like former President Olusegun Obasanjo always tried to appoint the heads of the security agencies in a manner that it was rarely a matter for contention.
Towards the end of Jonathan’s tenure, the following were heads of the security agencies. National Security Adviser (NSA) was Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) – Northwest; Chief of Army Staff was Lt. General Kenneth Minimah – South-South; Chief of Defence Staff was Air Vice-Marshall Alex Badeh – Northeast; Chief of Naval Staff was Rear Admiral Usman Jibrin – North- Central; Chief of Air Staff was Air Vice Marshall Adesola Amosu – Southwest; Director-General of SSS was Ita Ekpenyong – South-South and Inspector-General of Police was Suleiman Abba – Northwest.
Obasanjo, for his part, had a unique trick of appointing the core service chiefs from northern and southern minority ethnic groups, while picking the heads of intelligence agencies from the three biggest ethnic groups. So, for instance, when Lt. General Martin Luther Agwai – a minority Christian from Kaduna State was Chief of Army Staff, the Director-General of the SSS was Col. Kayode Are – a Yoruba.
By contrast, the bulk of the service chiefs and heads of intelligence agencies under this dispensation are from the north – save Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Naval Staff.
The argument has been that Buhari has not deliberately favoured the north, but has simply ensured that all zones are catered for in making these appointments. On paper, that sounds reasonable but it actually jars against our reality.
In making political appointments, it is almost impossible to reflect Nigeria’s federal character as required by the constitution if you are only focusing on the six zones. What happens when there are less than six positions to be distributed? You must then apply another factor to create a sense of balance.
The truth is Nigerians see themselves more in terms of north and south and that reality has been accepted by our political elite who have now adopted the convention of rotating power between north and south.
It is this political reality which the president and his advisers don’t appear to take too seriously – and it smacks of gross political insensitivity with the country on the cusp of elections. It, sadly, reinforces all the negative narratives about him.
Early in the year, it appeared as if Buhari was beginning to understand the point being made when he pledged to review his appointments to address the perceived imbalances.
What happened next was a return to the barricades as the administration rolled out a list of ‘appointments’ to justify the president’s position. But it was a poor and unconvincing statistical defence that sought in some places to make an equivalence of, say, the position of the chief of a major security service with that of a special assistant or executive director in a parastatal.
Security appointments are strategic, sensitive and powerful. We saw how influential the position of National Security Adviser was under Sambo Dasuki. Such offices would always attract attention and need to be shared equitably.
Some who have come to Buhari’s defence, argue that in appointing Bichi he had done nothing wrong – given that some of his predecessors like Jonathan and Obasanjo equally named their kinsmen as heads of the DSS.
My response would be: whatever happened to ‘change begins with me’? Change should not just begin and end with catching and jailing looters. It should extend to the way government is run; it should include uniting a country historically divided along lines of ethnicity. If his predecessors were content to be locked in their ethnic prisons, does Buhari have to execute the same routine?
By repeating the old and redundant practice of appointing key security chiefs from one’s ethnic redoubt, Buhari cannot claim to be different from his predecessors.
One of the enduring lines from his inaugural speech in 2015 was where he famously declared: ‘I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.’ In naming the new DSS, it would have been an excellent affirmation of that early position for people in the deep southern state of Bayelsa to be able to feel that, by retaining their son, a president from the far northern state of Katsina truly belongs to them.