That DIA Conference on Diplomacy and Effective Collaboration

That DIA Conference on Diplomacy and Effective Collaboration

By MUKHTAR Ya’u Madobi

It was on Friday, November 17th that Nigeria’s famous military intelligence body, the Defence Intelligence Agency, DIA, marked the end of its weeklong annual conference for the Defence Attaches and Advisers posted into the country.

The Defense Advisors were sent from various countries across the world in order to enhance bilateral relations with Nigeria towards achieving overall national security objectives.

The theme of this year’s ritual security event was “Leveraging Defence Diplomacy and Effective Regional Collaboration for Enhanced National Security.”

The conference was necessary and came at a time when the world is facing unusual security challenges characterized by a volatile, uncertain, and complex environment that needs a holistic and whole-of-society approach in order to stem its rising tides.

It is pertinent to understand that the transnational nature of the current threats has made regional cooperation through strategic partnerships a matter of utmost necessity, which can be achieved by the Defence Attaché System.

According to the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), Maj.-Gen. Emmanuel Undiandeye, the conference would place the attachés in a better state to maximally leverage opportunities in their respective nations of accreditation to advance Nigeria’s national security interests.

Over the years, the importance of this Defence Attaches System to Nigeria has been immeasurable and can never be downplayed. The annual conference gives the agency the opportunity to appraise the activities of its defence sections all over the world.

Additionally, it also helped the DIA to identify new lessons, discuss modalities for common challenges, as well as to strategize for the future, especially as the election year approached.

Without doubt, it is quite understandable that the nature of threats posed by the enemies of Nigeria reinforced the need for collaborative efforts between government departments within the security service and through foreign diplomats and defence attachés as well.

This year’s conference was able to highlight the need for synergy and collaboration among the intelligence and security agencies as well as Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to ensure that no effort would be spared in dealing with the threats to Nigeria’s corporate existence as a nation. The same scenario should be forwarded to other countries that are also developmental partners in security progress and achieving national interest.

The outcome of the conference attested to the relevance of the Defence Advisers/Attachés system in advancing Nigeria’s national security and defence objectives as the agency restated its commitment to continue to leverage the defence attaché system in support of on-going engagements of the armed forces, especially in contemporary security context.

The job of a Defence Attaché/Adviser- a member of the military serving overseas is to protect, develop and promote the defence interests of their county in the nation they are assigned, as well as in bilateral military and defence relations.

Recall that the DIA had in July accredited 10 Defence Attaches and Advisers deployed to Nigeria from other countries. This accreditation of the new defence attachés had further strengthened the already existing bilateral relationship between Nigeria and the allied countries.

Since then, the defense advisors and attaches who were from 10 countries which included Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Niger Republic, South Africa, South Korea, Tanzania, Ukraine and finally Zimbabwe have been discharging their functions in collaboration with the DIA.

Meanwhile, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), an organization that gathers intelligence and also coordinates military operations, is known to perform vital security roles in an ever-increasing challenging environment.

The agency has continued to play a central role in the intelligence community, particularly in providing technological capabilities and external and domestic security assessments, mainly of military nature.

Over the years , the agency has been at the forefront in strengthening alliances to promote Nigeria’s regional and international interest by broadening its horizon in exploring avenues to improve indigenous capability in the various dimensions of national security.

One of such ways is through providing timely and actionable intelligence which shapes the global strategic landscape to our advantage in containing several forms of criminalities.

Nevertheless, this year’s conference will go down as a milestone achievement in Nigeria’s efforts to refocus on the challenges of re-engineering the Defence Attaché system in furtherance of our national security interests through effective collaboration.

MUKHTAR is the author of a book on “National Security Strategy” and is a staff writer with the Emergency Digest.