On June 19, 2023, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as Special Adviser on Security. On Monday, June 26, 2023, he formally assumed office as Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), a position he holds to this day. National security is a complex, sensitive and enormously important national responsibility. It is not a position given to just anyone, regardless of how close the person may be to the President. The National Security Adviser sits at the centre of the coordination of Nigeria’s security and intelligence architecture. The office requires experience, discretion, strategic thinking, patriotism and, above all, the ability to bring different security institutions together in pursuit of a common national objective.
For over three years, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has performed these duties diligently and largely without unnecessary noise. In fact, Ribadu appears to “eat like an ant but work like an elephant”. He speaks less about what he does and allows the results to speak for themselves.
He inherited a complicated security environment: terrorism and insurgency in the North-East, banditry and mass kidnappings in the North-West, communal conflicts, oil theft, organised crime, separatist violence and other emerging threats. Nigeria was also confronted by growing instability across the Sahel, making its security challenges increasingly transnational.
