Columns

Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

Published

2 years ago

July 23, 2022

Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

By: Bodurin Kayode

One thing I have learnt in the North Eastern Nigeria war theatre is the fact that both the kinetic and the non-kinetic players are one as a team. We do not have a superior partner against an inferior partner. Just leaders. This is because we have accepted the grim reality of the fact that the bullet that kills the General is the same bullet that can send the private worrier in any organization to his early grave.

You could see it clearly in the way the military, which is the toughest kinetic organization managing the insurgency, has been embracing others in the non-kinetic realm into the theatre.

I was in a police forum recently where the command bomb controller was explaining how they detonate bombs and IEDs and it was not different from the way the military did it in the same Mallam Fatori council area of northern Borno.

What I am saying is that both the military and the non-kinetic sector including the intelligence services and the media have been drafted into the war to fight a common enemy. So if one partner feels offended in any way about the way the other does his thing then the onus is on him to call the person and use civil language to make his complaint and the solution will be reached for the common good. Not to use crude language regardless of how angry one partner is.

DO WE HAVE ANY SUPERIOR PARTNER TO THE REST OF US?

The answer to this is a capital no.What we have is a common enemy that must be crushed. And that is Boko Haram and their cousins.

So if we have a common enemy it means we are all agents of the state having the right to do the right thing at all times. The Directorate of State Security partners can claim that it is only them that have the right to protect the state but that would apply to states where we don’t have known enemies looking down on us. They surely can’t do it alone in the Maiduguri war where everyone is a target. They need all of us.

I had a sordid encounter with one overzealous Rabiu of the DSS working with the north east Development Commission (NEDC) after he had intimidated some of my colleagues to warn me simply because he didn’t know me personally.

What happened? I was trying to join the convoy of the NEDC on a commissioning mission from Borno Mass literacy like other people but their white J5 bus nearly knocked my car in the process. I think the driver himself was obviously an operative, then slowed down to ask me to move. By the time we got to the neighboring military secondary school, Rabiu marched rudely to me with an armed police man to intimidate me. I wondered why a decent operative with his senses will want to talk to a journalist and will now ask a police man to escort him to display a show of force. That was wrong. I was standing chatting with some informants trying to get some information and there was Rabiu with an officer Sunday of the Nigerian Police possibly to intimidate me. Sunday obviously reluctantly was drafted to create a scene on an unarmed reporter.

RABIU’S RUDE BODY LANGUAGE

No matter what I may have done wrong by my decision to burn my petrol for my friends in the NEDC, instead of following anyone, there was no justification for the rude language he used on me. I could even feel the realm of the dangerous “inferiority complex” he had in him for journalists when talking to me. He is obviously one of those who joined that service for the use of the weapon and not for intelligence purposes which they are supposed to be wired for. He was virtually talking down on me as if I would have been his mate if I was in that service. Insultingly.

Also Read: 2023: Why Kashim Shettima will bring massive votes than Any Presidential Running…

And then I humiliated him further by just smiling and I responded by saying, don’t bother yourself. I will not join the convoy again since I am so small or less important to the people who are not VIPs who he is guarding and who are also in the convoy. I could see the surprise in the eyes of officer Sunday of the Nigerian Police who escorted him possibly to show his force but saw me armless. Since he was too timid to come and see me himself and used a much more civil language to talk to me instead of whining like a hyena at the top of his voice. Immediately he walked off back to where the VIPs were and left me and another colleague watching the assignment.

Dogara, a young reporter of the channel’s TV who witnessed the entire wrong the guy meted out to my persona, went livid with rage. I just smiled and told him that as long as someone I respect is the boss of Rabiu, I will not return the rudeness he gave me back to him. Dogara looked at me and wondered if a known non-conformist like myself had gone soft and vowed that if he was the one he would have responded. I begged him to forget the antagonism of Rabiu because he was obviously sent. Ask Dogara when you see him. He saw the other side of me yesterday.

I never had the opportunity to meet Sadiq who is Rabiu’s direct boss before I left the NEDC but I will surely meet him one day to teach Rabiu how we behave in the theatre. He has no right to talk to me disrespectfully as if I was the enemy regardless of what wrong he thought I may have done based on their training and understanding which I am yet to be educated about. Rabiu is a very rude operative who needs training on the role of a journalist. He is not different from another who threatened to shoot myself and Franco sometime this year while driving into the government house. Our offense was because of a similar thing. When you come to a place and you don’t know certain people, you ask guys on the ground who they are and not to bully them unnecessarily. We got out of my car and marched to him and an argument started between the police who knew us and the new man who came from the Presidency. It was so funny. At the end of the day, the police officer who understood civil uniformed relationship asked us to go when the DSS guard started ranting about shooting at us. Franco and I walked back to my car and drove to our assignment. I actually reported the matter to the Governor’s chief detail who promised to look into the matter.

JOURNALISTS AND SECURITY MANAGEMENT

There is nothing contemporary that serious journalists do not know about security management and how to report with the advantage of the state at heart. The only difference in our job descriptions is the weapons they carry and high class equipment they use to get their own information. If we had a National Guard by now, most of the aspects of the state the DSS dabble into will not be necessary. But we missed that because some Generals sources convinced IBB that the guards will rival the Army. I don’t see the fear of rivalry at all. If the CIA and the FBI are not rivals all these years, why would a Nigerian national guard rival the Army? Well that is for another day’s Binoculars.

Sadly I always drum this into the ears of my colleagues who had one brush or the other with these people in the course of their duties.

The State Director in Borno here Oga Muritala as I call him is a fine gentleman. Always calm and gentle but you can’t take him for granted. I don’t have much interaction with his deputies other than hello when we cross paths or when I visit. But I have friends among them even in the lower ranks. They help me with my job. The reason why I couldn’t respond to Rabiu right down there on the ladder is that if we had a squabble and I placed him where he belongs, my friend Oga Muri may begin to have a second thought about the young reporter he knew 25 years ago while he was the Chief detail of the Governor of Zamfara state Ahmed Sani. Each time Yerima Bakura wanted to see me then as the reporter of the vanguard, this man was already waiting to usher me in. I remember his smiles with his walkie talkie in his hand. Always smiling and welcoming till this day when I meet him. Asking about my health and family.

When Yerima Bakura ushered me into his home with his kids milling around while we ate “twoo shinkafa and mia kuka” traditional Hausa food together. Oga Muri was there though distantly and never saw me as a threat. I left Gusau as a happy man. If I wasn’t a threat to Oga Muri then, when we were both very young, why would Rabiu be ranting all over the place as if I have suddenly become his personal threat? Someone should teach him civility with journalists or else something will happen to him that will puncture his arrogance.

I think the onus is on his direct boss in the NEDC Sadiq and my friend Oga Muri to instill our way of doing things to Rabiu and his likes who still behave like we are in the days of the NSO to calm down and respect the fact that the bullet that will kill a private operative is the same bullet that will kill an agent of a sergeant equivalent and it is the same that can send even the DG of their organization to the great beyond. No mortal has power over death so let’s be each other’s keeper.

Let’s learn to be civil in what we do in the war theatre. That will surely keep the kinetic and the non-kinetic together to fight the common enemy. And that is Boko Haram, ISWAP and even the Bandits. The Journalist has never been the enemy and will never be.

Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

Columns

NSE: Capital Market Investment for Dividend and Capital Appreciation

Published

4 days ago

May 3, 2024

Ochuwa Ibrahim

NSE: Capital Market Investment for Dividend and Capital Appreciation

By: Balami Lazarus

The piece is written with an understanding of the capital market, the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Nigerian Group Exchange (NGX). I am a part owner of some listed companies, a bona fide shareholder, and a member of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN). Therefore, I believe that this will open the eyes of someone out there to this profitable and protected business investment through the laws, rules, and regulations under the watch of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Nigeria.

Recently, my friend and I were listening to the Network News on NTA at 9 a.m. when business news came up on the capital market of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. My friend was not following the simple breakdown of the transactions known as deals, which quickly informed me he was a novice in the activities of the capital market, its transactions, and the lush investment opportunities that abound therein.

However, students of business and financial management are aware of shares, common stocks, bonds, and other securities instruments available on the floor of the capital market for investors to take positions in the shares of the companies listed for daily trading at the stock exchange market. To my knowledge, some people are ignorant of the investment windows in the stock market and how they are done and carried out, where your money, time, and patience work in your favor depending on how you position yourself in the market as either a long-term, mid-term, or short-term investor.

There are differences between capital markets and financial institutions. Financial institutions are the banks, while capital markets are the stock exchange floors where sellers and buyers transactions are expressly carried out on their behalf by brokers through securities firms, provided that they are mandated to do so by their clients, who are the investors.

Common stocks have been the backbone of the capital market. Owership of common shares by individuals, directly or indirectly, has built individual wealth, which has helped in the expansion of the Nigerian Business Environment (NBE)..

Therefore, investment in the capital market is safe and secure because investors are highly protected by the laws of the land. Interestingly, as a shareholder, you are a part owner of the company. “When you invest in common stock of a company, you become a part owner of the company.” This makes you a direct owner of a portion, with the privileges thereof provided by law.

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist: 08036779290

NSE: Capital Market Investment for Dividend and Capital Appreciation

Columns

Presidency: Why Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s partnership will continue beyond 2027

Published

2 weeks ago

April 20, 2024

News Net Global

Presidency: Why Tinubu and Kashim Shettima's partnership will continue beyond 2027

Presidency: Why Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s partnership will continue beyond 2027

Dr. James BWALA

Some politicians and their calculations of events, incidents, and expectations leading to the 2027 presidential elections have so far exposed their wicked agenda against the Tinubu-Shettima partnership and the recreation of good governance in Nigeria. History has recorded beautiful scenarios that this administration has brought to play in changing the old narratives of governance in Nigeria. And we have seen these numerous plays, from the dollar narratives to market trading and the ideas of price control. Tinubu and Shettima’s table of governance has been full of ideas, and the partnerships have been supportive of mutual respect. But evil hunters in the political domain would always prefer the idea of scattering the table to put leaders afar just to gain their mutually conceived and derailing ideas into play.

It is laughable to compare reasons for Tinubu’s needs as Governor of Lagos State when he replaced Kofoworola Bucknor as Deputy Governor with Femi Pedro in 2002, who served with him until 2007. That was Lagos, and this is Nigeria, for which the ground and outlook are miles apart and the North is not against itself. For sometimes, some politicians in the game of Troy have fashioned for themselves a belief on the contrary to Mr. President’s thinking towards achieving many goals he had been working alongside his vice president to achieve and make history not only for Nigeria but also for themselves.

Never in the history of Nigeria have the two first families been seen coming together from the days of struggling to power to governance, as demonstrated by the Tinubu and the Shettima families. Long before now, the two leaders had built a relationship of trust and respect that fortified their wine of understanding despite forces from within and outside the party they are leading today. The calls from such separatists did not start today, and nothing they do can amount to this administration losing focus on giving over two hundred million Nigerians the desired dividends of democracy, and neither Tinubu nor Kashim Shettima are losing focus on their promises to Nigeria.

The idea they are circulating on social media for 2027 and the possibility of the vice president being replaced by Kwankwaso from the Northwest by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a fabrication of their own imagination. Who are those powerful people around Tinubu who got his mind on what they were trying to sell on social media? And what also do they know about the discussions Tinubu and Kashim Shettima are having when they meet behind closed doors to share their views on governance?

The NNPP presidential aspirant, Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has made it crystal clear during his campaign that he cannot be VP to anyone given his pedigree and belief in the political circle, even at a time when he has a better opportunity to bargain with the APC. Despite the outcome of the 2023 general election and the crowd he seemed to have pulled for the NNPP, the Ganduje factor still speaks loud even as of today. And politics in Kano has many faces, which has recorded a time when great politicians have failed to deliver even the Almighty Kwankwasiya movement. As such, Kwankwaso, even though he is not speaking publicly, cannot have an effect on the Tinubu and Kashim Shettima relationship and partnership in leading Nigeria to the Promise Land.

READ ALSO:https://newsng.ng/the-plight-of-farida/

I believe these mischief makers are already putting Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s administration on trial, as they did promise to do so both in court and in public opinion. The court case that the former governor of Kano State and National Chairman of the APC is having has nothing to do with the presidency and the administration of Tinubu and Kashim Shettima except that Ganduje belongs to the APC family and holds a vintage position in the party. These criminals in political circles are trying to pin the case on the party or the presidency to the effect that they are claiming that the move to dethrone Ganduje was equally a move to replace Kashim Shettima as VP in 2027.

The 2027 presidential election will come and go like any other election before it, and we shall be witnesses to the fact of history that the Tinubu and Kashim Shettima administration have recorded, which shall speak for them in the deciding factor. No one, either in person or group, can change the destiny of Tinubu’s golden boy.

** James BWALA, PhD writes from Abuja

Presidency: Why Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s partnership will continue beyond 2027

Columns

Borno: Why would an NGO sponsor a fire outbreak in IDP camps?

Published

1 month ago

April 1, 2024

News Net Global

Borno: Why would an NGO sponsor a fire outbreak in IDP camps?

By: Dr. James BWALA

Although the commissioner for information in Borno State refused to mention in his statement those NGOs trying to malign the Zulum administration’s efforts towards the internally displaced people, IDP, a video in circulation with the confession of one of the arrested suspects alleges that an international INGO with the name ALIMA and others are behind the numerous fire outbreaks being experienced at various IDP camps across the state lately.

It could be recalled that on one of his outings, to support the IDPs in Borno, the governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, received hurtful news of such experiences that made him lose it. But I ask again: why would an NGO sponsor a fire outbreak in IDP camps? A statement reads:

PUBLIC NOTICE ON SUSPECTED CASES OF FIRE INCIDENCES IN IDP CAMPS IN BORNO STATE

The Borno State Government has received situation reports (SITREPs) from reliable sources regarding suspected cases of fire outbreaks in some IDP camps within the state. This recent rise in the frequency of infernos in IDP camps has been a matter of concern, and all hands are on deck to forestall any further occurrence of fire outbreaks in the state. The government has been investigating the occurrence of the infernos on a case-by-case basis, with a view to establishing the remote and extant causes and developing a strategy to stem future occurrences.

On March 29, 2024, the Ministry of Information and Internal Security received a report in which a suspect admitted that he and his “co-conspirators” were “hired” by some NGOs (names withheld) to set IDP camps on fire. This matter is under investigation, and further necessary action shall only be taken on the basis of the outcome of the investigation. Those arrested are in detention undergoing intensive interrogation, while the NGOs who were pinpointed in the alleged violent practice have been summoned for preliminary interrogation.

The government assures members of the public that this matter will receive appropriate and expedited attention, and any culprit will be dealt with according to the law.

Meanwhile, members of the public are urged to be calm, peaceful, and law-abiding. Any breach of security should be reported to the nearest law enforcement agency or traditional rulers for transmission to the relevant authority.

*Announcer*

Prof. Usman Tar,

Honourable Commissioner,

Ministry of Information and Internal Security, Borno State

READ ALSO: https://newsng.ng/police-witness-tells-iip-sars-how-peter-ekwealor-slumped-after-allegedly-confessing-to-killing-asp-akoh-ude/

I have worked in a camp while working with some INGOs in Maiduguri, sometimes before returning to the field as a journalist. I can say without mincing words that some INGOs can do everything possible to keep their jobs. However, I am pained by such a move at the detriment of the efforts and support of the people of Borno State and Governor Babagana Umara Zulum. If there are such NGOs, they must be exposed!

The government of Borno State and its resilient people have suffered enough in the last 13 years of insurgency. It is not a palatable experience for the governor to be moving from one point to another, trying to see that his people are met with the needed support and shelter after having fled their homes in the wake of the death harvest by agents of darkness. Governor Zulum has become a touring governor on mines fields with sweat-sucked clothes, trying to reach out to the needy across the landmines field. As such, he does not deserve this sabotaging move by the organization, which should also come to help as well.

The suspect, who made mention of the names of INGOs sponsoring the outbreak of fire in IDP, should be thoroughly investigated because some are also alleging that he could have actually been under duress to mention the names of some organization as a result of the beating he received. If at all that was the case, these partners alledgedly in crime can be acquitted; otherwise, they actually should not have a place to operate in the state or anywhere else on Nigeria’s soil because the need for them is to help our people and not to add salt to injury in a place where deaths mounted.

James BWALA, PhD, writes from Abuja.

Borno: Why would an NGO sponsor a fire outbreak in IDP camps?