By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan
One of the fastest ways to know whether a country is serious or just acting is to look at who is in charge of its security.
In sane countries, Defence Ministers and National Security Advisers are chosen like surgeons for brain surgery:
Experience.
Competence.
Track record under fire.
In Nigeria, they are chosen like people sharing Aso Ebi or Fura da Nono at a wedding:
“Who supported us in elections?”
“Who needs compensation?”
“Who must not be offended?”
And then we wonder why brigadier generals are being abducted and executed like chickens in the bush.
Defence Ministry Is Not A Retirement Package
Let’s start with the obvious:
Minister of Defence 1 – businessman turned governor
Known more for deals than doctrine.
No deep operational background in war, strategy, or intelligence.
Tinubu : “Perfect! Let’s put him in charge of national defence.”
Minister of Defence 2 – ex-governor
Could not secure his own state.
His people rejected him at the polls for failing on security.
Tinubu: “Yes, this is the man to sit over the armed forces.”
This is not a cabinet.
This is compensation committee.
In a country bleeding from Boko Haram, ISWAP, bandits, and unknown gunmen, the President looked at a pool of retired generals, ex-service chiefs, former NIA, DIA, DSS heavyweights, and then chose politicians that couldn’t even defeat local bandits in their states.
NSA Is Not A Political Trophy
Nuhu Ribadu may be intelligent in his own lane, but National Security Adviser is not an EFCC posting.
You don’t put a man whose core strength is anti-corruption paperwork to sit atop a multi-dimensional war:
Terrorism
Insurgency
Separatist violence
Banditry
Foreign infiltration
Cyber threats
The NSA in a war-torn country must be an operator, not a “committee man.”
You need someone who has:
Sat inside real-time ops rooms.
Worked with military, intel, and foreign agencies.
Lived in the world of NIA/DIA/DSS-type intelligence, not only legal files and public drama.
Right now, what we have is a political NSA presiding over a theatre of blood.
How Serious Countries Choose Their Security Chiefs
Let’s compare this madness with how other nations behave.
1. United States
U.S. Defence Secretaries are often generals, intel heavyweights, or people who have spent their lives immersed in defence and strategy (e.g., Lloyd Austin retired four-star general, James Mattis another four-star).
National Security Advisers? People like H.R. McMaster, Condoleezza Rice, Jake Sullivan career strategists and security scholars. No state governor who failed to secure Detroit suddenly becomes Defence Secretary as compensation.
2. Israel
Defence ministers and security heads are battle-tested: ex-IDF chiefs, generals, war veterans.
Mossad and Shin Bet bosses come from deep inside the security system decades of espionage, counterterrorism, and operations. That’s why when a soldier is killed, they move heaven and earth. In Nigeria, a general is killed and we are composing statements.
3. Russia
Whatever you think about Moscow, their security appointments are ruthless and strategic.
Defence chiefs and intel bosses are career military or KGB/FSB/GRU men. You won’t find a former regional governor who couldn’t stop car theft running national defence.
4. France
Defence ministers come from strategic, military, diplomatic or defence policy backgrounds.
Intelligence chiefs come from within the DGSE, military, or police intel apparatus. They don’t pull in a party loyalist whose biggest achievement was sharing rice during elections.
5. United Kingdom
The Defence Secretary works with CDS, MI5, MI6, GCHQ all led by people whose careers are rooted in defence and intelligence.
Positions are politically appointed, yes, but competence and background still matter, heavily.
The UK doesn’t pick someone who couldn’t handle local crime in Leeds and hand him the entire British military.
6. Turkey
Turkey’s top security positions are filled by former generals, intel professionals, and police commissioners who have deep counter-insurgency experience against PKK and others.
That’s why they execute cross-border operations with precision. They put operators, not “friends of the president.”
7. Egypt
Defence and intelligence in Egypt are almost exclusively ex-military or intel veterans.
You may argue about democracy, but you cannot argue that they take security appointments as a joke.
Nigeria?
We pick ex-governors who lost control of their states and promote them upward to supervise uniformed men.
A Rotten Logic That Rewards Failure
This is the Nigerian formula:
1. Fail as a governor → Get promoted as Minister.
2. Fail as a party loyalist → Get rewarded as NSA or key appointee.
3. Kill citizens as a terrorist → Get shortlisted for rehabilitation.
4. Speak against the system as an activist or agitator → Get prison or treason charges.
Everything is upside down.
And people expect security to improve? Based on what? Prayer points and press statements?
What A Serious President Would Do (If Security Truly Mattered)
If Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was serious not just talking for foreign cameras he would:
1. Fire the current NSA.
Replace him with a seasoned intel veteran: retired NIA/DIA/DSS boss or deeply experienced operator with decades in the craft.
2. Restructure the Defence Ministry.
Appoint at least one retired senior general with real battlefield and command experience as Defence Minister, not a rejection from the ballot box.
3. End the “repentant terrorist” nonsense.
Institute clear frameworks: investigation, prosecution, sentencing. Create deradicalisation only for low-level, non-blood-on-hand actors, under strict monitoring not commanders and field butchers.
4. Create a Joint National Security Council that actually works.
NSA, CDS, COAS, CNS, CAS, IGP, DSS DG, NIA DG, DIA DG — meeting weekly with binding resolutions and transparent presidential backing.
5. Audit and purge the security sector.
Leakages, saboteurs, moles, political appointees planted in sensitive outfits: flush them. Rotate postings, overhaul comms, secure channels, and enforce counterintelligence seriously.
6. Put professionals above party men.
Nobody cares which party keeps power if citizens are being buried in mass graves weekly.
Buhari Broke It. Tinubu Is Refusing To Fix It.
Buhari:
Opened the door to “repentant terrorists” and destroyed morale. Allowed infiltration, sabotage, and political Jihadists to play inside the security architecture.
Tinubu:
Saw the ruins.
Walked in.
Rearranged the chairs.
Called it “Renewed Hope.”
Hope for who?
Certainly not for the soldiers who now die knowing their killers might end up in a government camp eating three square meals.
You cannot build a secure nation with:
Wrong people at the top,
Wrong policies on the ground,
Wrong incentives for killers.
Defence ministers should be retired generals or deeply grounded defence professionals.
The NSA should be a frontline intelligence mind, not a political redeployment slot.
Anything less is not a government.
It is a risk factor.
And right now, Nigeria’s biggest security problem is not only the terrorists in the bush it is the politicians in suits, agbada and babanriga who have turned national security into a reward system for loyalty, instead of a sacred duty to the dead and the living.
