Still on the Person Needed for Tinubu’s NSA By Segun Olugbile
I read with interest the well researched article by Mr. Yushau Shuaib of PRNigeria on the personality of the National Security Adviser (NSA) to be appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The piece is a very good analysis on the reality on the ground. It shares further insight on the strong militarisation of the ONSA which is not too good for the country.
Other areas of our national security objectives usually suffer the consequences. Military by their nature of training and experience mostly operate at the most tactical level. They are trained to execute, but not trained in conceptualising policy and strategic thinking, or operate at policy and strategic levels.
That explains the reason our national security posture is highly polarised and regimented with command and control operating culture, and our national security thinking and mentality are militarily mindset.
The framework and scope of National Security far outweigh the narrow mindset of making the office exclusively reserved for the retired General.
Perhaps that may be the reason we are falling in other aspects of our national security strategic goals.
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Like Shuaib rightly pointed out, national security objectives are wider in application and coverage. By the current mindset others such as food security, aviation secuity, cybersecurity, etc are mostly militarised.
This government should perharps deviate from this tradition by appointing non-military technocrat with diverse knowledge and expertise in international politics, strategic diplomacy and convergence security knowledge at strategic level that cut across the scope of our national security.
Similar mistake or tradition has been made in the militarisation of the National Cybersecurity Strategic Policy and Implementation. While the Defence Space Agency has sufficiently taken care of developing military capabilities in cybersecurity, the overall national cybersecurity strategy, coordination and advisory shouldn’t be militarised as we currently have, just as in other countries. The office is usually occupied by a top civilian technocrat with multiple experiences cutting across academics, industry, diplomacy and technical backgrounds.
I don’t support militarisation of ONSA, but I support strong ONSA lead through synergy between top technocrats and military leaders. Condoleeza Rice from USA who is a Professor and political scientist from non-military institutions did excellently well as NSA other non-military NSAs before and after her in the United States.
Nevertheless, the dynamics of our national politics and Nigeria factors are major challenges anyway.
I don’t mind to be challenged or corrected on this position.
Segun Olugbile is Cybersecurity expert
