President Bola Tinubu’s recent appointment of the first-ever Special Adviser on Homeland Security was driven by pressure from service and intelligence chiefs over what they considered the National Security Adviser Office’s overreach into operational military matters, Sunday PUNCH has learnt.
Multiple presidency and security sources familiar with the appointment and the circumstances surrounding it told our correspondent that the move was triggered by a combination of professional friction between the NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, and the heads of the armed forces and intelligence-community concerns about the quality of analysis reaching the President.
A senior presidency source said the dissatisfaction within the security establishment had been building for months and was beginning to erode the cohesion of the national security architecture.
The source said, “The truth of the matter is that the service chiefs and the intelligence community are not happy with Ribadu. He is getting involved in operational matters that should be totally out of his purview. What is the job of the National Security Adviser? It is to coordinate the security and intelligence agencies, synthesise information and advise the President, not to dabble in operational matters of the armed forces, the police, or the DSS.”
