The signs have always been there: inter-agency rivalry, uncoordinated national security, and other policy missteps, discordant tunes on all matters and a hardly coherent presidency.
Yesterday, the bungling contraption that the Muhammadu Buhari presidency has become over time advertised itself publicly with the fight between the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, a retired army general, and the Presidential Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, over the nation’s security blowing into the open.
Specifically, a leaked memo published in an online medium on Monday exposed the underbelly of bad blood within the presidency.
In the memo purportedly written by Monguno, he accused Kyari of undue and dangerous interference in matters bordering on national security, among other scathing allegations.
Also, in the memo first published by SaharaReporters and Premium Times, the NSA warned Kyari against meddling in security affairs in the presidency. He also warned the service chiefs to stop taking orders from Kyari and to be wary of his interference.
The memo, addressed to the service chiefs and copied to the president and ministers for foreign affairs, defence, interior, police affairs and Kyari himself, is dated December 2019.
Kyari has long been hailed as one of the most powerful men in the Buhari presidency and the head of a cabal accused of running President Buhari’s administration behind the scene.
The chief of staff is known to be one of the president’s closest aides. He plans Buhari’s schedules while ministers are said to queue in his office to see the president.
Kyari’s influence became clear to many during a retreat organised by the presidency for the then ministers-designate.
While declaring the retreat open on November 5, 2015, Buhari said: “In addition, all communications and appointments from you (ministers) to the presidency should be routed through the Office of the Chief of Staff as it is the normal (procedure) in this presidential system.”
But Monguno has fired a warning memo to all service chiefs to desist from taking further directives from Kyari, according to documents seen by the Premium Times.
The NSA said Kyari’s directives to service chiefs were sometimes issued without the knowledge much less approval of the president, a practice he said had added to the government’s failure to contain insecurity.
“Chief of staff to the president is not a presiding head of security, neither is he sworn to an oath of defending the country,” Monguno said in the December 9, 2019, letter.
“As such, unprofessional practices such as presiding over meetings with service chiefs and heads of security organisations as well as ambassadors and high commissioners to the exclusion of the NSA and/or supervising ministers are a violation of the constitution and directly undermine the authority of Mr. President.
“Such acts and continued meddlesomeness by the chief of staff have not only ruptured our security and defence efforts but have slowed down any meaningful gain that Mr. President has sought to achieve.”
Source: Guardian Newspaper
