NSA Babagana Monguno, SSS DG, Lawal Daura, at war

President Muhammadu Buhari’s
National Security Adviser, Babagana
Monguno, and the Director General of
the State Security Services (SSS), Lawal
Daura, are locked in a bitter battle for
supremacy, PREMIUM TIMES has been
reliably informed.
The cold war between two of the
nation’s most senior security officers
has festered to an extent that it is
beginning to have implications on
national security, government officials
said.
Sources told this newspaper that the
two officials have stopped talking to
each other, and President Muhammadu
Buhari has been unable to make them
call a truce.
The row started last August when Mr.
Buhari directed the NSA to set up a
committee to probe military
procurement from 2007 to 2015.
Multiple security sources said as
Nigeria’s secret police, it was taken for
granted that the SSS would be
represented in the committee. But at
the point of choosing members of the
panel, Mr. Monguno declined to allow
representation from the SSS, they said.
According to our sources, when asked
why the SSS official was turned back,
the NSA said he wanted the panel,
made up of mainly retired military
officers and a representative from the
Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), to be closed-nit, to
avoid leakage of confidential
information about the committee’s
work.
“The DG of the DSS found that
insulting,” our source said. “According
to him it was rude and illogical to
claim that an agency in charge of
intelligence gathering and other
serious confidential security issues for
the entire country is not considered
worthy of keeping information about a
committee.”
From then the relationship between
both men deteriorated and has not
recovered, officials said.
Unending turf war in the Villa
Last year, PREMIUM TIMES obtained a memo sent by
Mr. Buhari’s aide de camp, Mohammed Abubakar, a
lieutenant colonel, dated June 24, ordering SSS
operatives to stay away from the interiors of Aso
Rock presidential villa, and restricting them to the
perimeters of the villa.
Mr. Abubakar said SSS operatives should steer clear
of areas such as “Admin Reception, Service Chiefs
Gate, Residence Reception, Rear Resident, Resident
Gate, Office Reception, C-In-C Control Office, ACADE
Gate, C-IN-C Control Gate and Panama”.
“However, the personnel of the DSS in conjunction
with other security forces are to man other duty
beats/locations located within the immediate outer
perimeter of the Presidential Villa,” he said in the
memo.
Despite a counter memo from the president’s Chief
Security Officer at the time, Abdulrahman Mani, who
said Mr. Abubakar’s directive should be ignored, SSS
personnel still guard only the periphery of Aso Rock,
our sources said.
Mr. Daura, a kinsman of President Buhari, is still
seething about that too, officials told PREMIUM
TIMES.
According to our source, Mr. Daura accuses Mr.
Monguno, a retired Major General and former Chief
of Defence Intelligence, of supporting the expulsion
of SSS from inner Aso Rock.
Arrest of Mohammed Umar
PREMIUM TIMES also learned that the relationship
between the two men was further strained following
the arrest of Mohammed Umar, a member of the
presidential arms panel. Mr. Umar was arrested by
the SSS.
According to our source, Mr. Monguno, who is a
close ally of the retired Air Commodore, was furious
about the manner the SSS raided Mr. Umar’s house,
before detaining him.
Mr. Monguno repeatedly complained to security
officials close to him that he loathed the way Mr.
Daura carried himself as if he was the NSA.
Mr. Monguno also complained that Mr. Daura
appropriated the job traditionally assigned to the
office of the NSA, our sources said.
“The NSA is complaining that the DG of the DSS is
over-reaching himself and performing his duties,”
our source stated.
The duties of the NSA include the coordination of
departments of internal security, and counter-
terrorism operations and lawful interceptions.
That means that security agencies including the SSS
are supposed to report to the NSA and regularly
brief him on intelligence gathered and take
directives from him.
However, since both men no longer see eye to eye,
the SSS stopped briefing the office of the NSA and
hardly takes directives from that office, our sources
said.
Mr. Daura, according to those sources, however
argued that the NSA was never available for his
work.
He said Mr. Monguno was in the habit of travelling
around the world with President Buhari, leaving a
vacuum in the co-ordination of national security.
Both officials could not be reached to comment for
this story. Mr. Daura did not answer or return calls.
Mr. Monguno’s media contact insisted the NSA is not
enthusiastic about discussing the development.