Quintessential Ribadu: Engine Room of Renewed Hope Performance

Sunny Hemebrim Amadi

Just as every organism has a nucleus, so does any enduring organisation an engine room and that truism has manifested in the way the office of the National Security Adviser under Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has been silently intervening in matters initially thought to be outside the purview of the office but still returning with impressive results.

Like they say in corporate parlance, the reward of hard work is more work, so it is no brainer that he has been involved in every facet where the administration is making giant strides, so much that those that questioned the rationale and the judgement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in choosing Ribadu as the NSA have begun to see what informed the choice while doffing their caps for him as one adept in choosing the best for each position.

The level of reduction in banditry in the country has astounded even naysayers, with the menace only happening in-between and no longer the order of the day, where deaths from such made it seem as if they were mere numbers without involvement of human lives.

Added to that is the reduction in terrorism and the improved coordination of all security agencies whose rivalry was blighting the results and compromising the much-needed cooperation that made them to work almost at cross-purposes. This coordination is the reason hostages are being released without payment of ransom and with increasing rapidity.

Though he has since left the anti-graft agency where he headed, his imprints are still very visible in tackling economic sabotage through the decisive tackling of oil theft, which benefited illegal oil bunkerers than the federal government. Times were when the country was losing so much of the oil that we couldn’t meet the Oil Producing Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota. Prior to that, when Ribadu headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) where in trying to solve the issue of the menace, and had done the fingerprinting of Nigeria’s crude with the plan to track it so that wherever stolen Nigeria’s crude is taken to, it would be identified. So now that he is astride entire security architecture, he has shown it could be solved and has doubled the effort and Nigeria’s economy is better for it.

He has also strategically cleaned up the financial system and by going after financial stalkers like the Binance executives by launching disciplined and intelligence-led operations that have emboldened the interception of online fraudsters that have been denting the image of the country.

As we talk, bandits are being killed in droves while kidnappers have been largely apprehended through tracking and arrests, especially in the North-east and North-west where it was endemic. As of the last count, over 5000 hostages have lately been freed.

Prior to the time of Ribadu, Nigerians did not know that they had a national Counter Terrorism Center because they were never effective or missing in action when duty called but that center has now attained international collaboration and intelligence sharing that partners like INTERPOL as well as advanced countries now share intelligence and the country is benefitting from his skills and reputation.

Because of his personal standing and clout in the international circles owing to his transparency and office, the government has increased security spending, which has also worked across the board and enabled investment in platforms and technology for effectiveness, especially in this era of Artificial Intelligence. This has given Nigeria clout and bettered our reputation thereby enhancing the image of President Tinubu’s administration in international circles.

His control of affairs also manifested when President Donald Trump threatened to rain bombs on Nigeria on account of alleged Christian genocide, which spread panic across the country. Men worried, and despite assurances, it appeared Trump was not swayed. Then entered Ribadu into the arena, he led a delegation to Washington, and within a few days, there were changes.

This came on the heels of the vitriolic umbrage of detractors of the Tinubu regime who questioned the usefulness and relevance of a Ribadu-led delegation. Articles flooded the media space while it formed topics of programmes in the airwaves, but in the end, he appeared with a list of areas of cooperation between Nigeria and the United States of America. At last, we are on the same page in the rage against criminality and terrorism.

A master strategist, he operates the tactic of diversion, which has set him apart in making his enemies to look in the wrong direction. At a point, Ribadu appeared to have been meddling on having his hand in every pie of government, often appearing too political for his office, but unknown to the ordinary citizen, he was using it to make those working against the state to look in a different direction while he routed them.

Across the regions of the country, he forged in different but relevant responses in the crucibles of superlative finesse so that while he is loud in areas irrelevant to his security strategies, he was very astute with pinpoint accuracy in routing enemies of state. In the South East which had become a slaughter field for both civilians and military personnel, without issuing any threats, he, within months of appointment, strategically calmed the zone.

In the South West he strategically busted criminal and terrorism cells, making high profile arrests. For the first time, international criminals and felons who came to hide in Nigeria were smoked out, arrested, and repatriated to face the law in their various countries or places they were wanted. He also calmed the region.

At the time he was appointed NSA, the North Central region had turned into a killing field from the clashes between herders and farmers. While many argue that it was a calculated onslaught against the natives for land grabbing, the effect was both chilling and telling but gradually, like his approach brought calmness and security to the Kajuru area of Kaduna State, the Benue region that was worst hit has transited to safety so that the once revered food basket of the nation has started knowing peace. Plateau State, which also suffered the same fate with daily onslaughts, are only seeing small skirmishes once in a while as against the mass slaughter that use to be the order of the day. It was so bad then that human lives lost in such attacks and conflicts wore the toga of mere statistics.

The North West and North east regarded as hotbeds of banditry and terrorism have since his assumption of office enjoyed some peace and quietude. Both informants and kidnappers have been put on the run while military offensives have recorded unprecedented successes. His underground synergy with neighbouring states has seen a new handshake across the Sahel states, while the Maghreb corridor, once regarded as a terror route, has assumed a level of sanity and safe passage.

His dispute resolution mechanism may have informed the decision by President Tinubu to vest him with the knotty Ogoni oil resolution issues. The region had adopted passive resistance to checking the exploration of oil in their region, which occasioned despoliation of their environment as well as the divide and rule tactics which oil majors adopted that pitched them against authorities. However, with the loss in human and material resources by the Ogonis, they became iron-clad resolute in stopping oil and gas related activities in their region.

On assumption of office by Tinubu, he handed over the Ogoni issue to Ribadu to resolve and pronto, he mapped out an approach that enabled consultation based on community levels so that when aggregated, it formed a broad-based and down-to-earth position of the Ogonis. A committee was set up to harmonise the positions and before long, an agreement was struck, paving way for the resumption of oil and gas activities in the once volatile region to the extent that intellectuals of the region admitted that their fears and concerns had been addressed and that what was left was for their people to position themselves for the best gains of resuming production.

Before that, remediation activities in the area had gone comatose as projects stalled while the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, which had become a cash cow for politicians, was revived and put back on track so that the trust of the people was restored. Added to that, other federal projects which had either been shoddily handled or abandoned were revived and completed, so the region felt the Ribadu effect and reasoned that nothing from him, like a good Chinese meal, would ever go wrong, so they acquiesced.

His successes have been so loud that detractors who worked so hard to blight his good works have been left prowling without success so that their charge now remains that he was working in order to be made president in the future. What such statements fail to take into account is that Ribadu’s records is an incontestable proof that he has ever been a go-getter whose motivation is achieving the best for his country in service. To those afraid he might join politics and head the country, the question to ask them is, what are their fears?