A former Navy Commodore, Kunle Olawunmi, has disclosed why President Mohammadu Buhari is not demonstrating willingness to go after high-profile politicians.
Disclosing this on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme where he featured on Wednesday, Olawunmi revealed that the president has refused to go after politicians who sponsor terrorists because of reasons best known to him.
According to him, he doesn’t understand why Buhari wouldn’t go after these politicians, after some Boko Haram terrorists in custody during interrogation, mentioned names of current governors, senators and Aso Rock officials as their sponsors.
Commenting on the Attack launched on the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA) in Kaduna on Tuesday, he described the act as an “aberration”.
“It is an aberration; you don’t attack the Nigerian Defence Academy and get away with it,” he lamented.
Adding to that, he accused the NDA and other military environments in the country, of carelessly opening its doors to everyone on Friday for Jumat prayer, giving terrorists the opportunity to survey the environment.
According to the former Navy Commodore: “In 2017, I carried out an investigation by the minister of defence that wanted me to check what was going on with the training and the security there (NDA). I remember I spent about a week in the NDA with the commandant and the staff but something struck me: every Friday, the gate of NDA is thrown open and everybody has access to pray in the mosque.
“On Fridays, you are going to see same thing happening across all military formations in the country…If you go to Defence Headquarters, I served at the Defence Headquarters as the Deputy Director, Defence Administration between 2015 and 2017, throughout my two years at the Defence Headquarters, I received visitors twice because of the strict security architecture there but every Friday, the gate of the Defence Headquarters is thrown wide open for everybody to come in and observe Jumat.
“That is the time the terrorists have the time to profile our security environment. It has always been the case. I have served the military intelligence for the past 35 years. Our problem is religion and socio-cultural.”
Furthermore, Olawunmi, a Professor of Global Security Studies, said he was a member of the Intelligence Brief at the Defence Headquarters during the leadership of the then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin (retd.).
The intelligence expert said he told the then CDS that the centre of gravity of the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the North-East and spreading to other parts of Nigeria was the sponsors.
“I told General Olonisakin then that the centre of this problem cannot be solved the same way we solved the problem of the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta problem was solved during (Ex-President Umaru) Yar’adua basically by me and I told them that we can’t use that same template for Boko Haram.
“I told General Olonisakin to look at the centre of gravity of the problem. I was made a member of the committee in 2016-2017 including (Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Ibrahi) Attahiru that died.
“I told them that the centre of gravity of Boko Haram in Nigeria is the sponsors of the programme. It was beyond us because the job we needed to do was kinetic but we cannot resolve issues of sponsors of Boko Haram that were in Buhari’s government that we know them. That was why we couldn’t pursue that aspect that could have resolved the issue because we need to arrest people.”
Furthermore, speaking on the reason Buhari has refused to prosecute the 400 Boko Haram sponsors the Nigerian Government claimed to arrest, in addition to some Bureau De Change operators who were said to be facilitating the transfer of money to Boko Haram terrorists, Olawunmi said that the government has not been able to prosecute the sponsors because it is allegedly partisan.
According to him, “Recently, 400 people were gathered as sponsors of Boko Haram, why is it that the Buhari government has refused to try them? Why can’t this government bring them to trial if not that they are partisan and part of the charade that is going on?
“You remember this Boko Haram issue started in 2012 and I was in the military intelligence at that time. We arrested those people. My organisation actually conducted interrogation and they (suspects) mentioned names. I can’t come on air and start mentioning names of people that are presently in government that I know that the boys that we arrested mentioned. Some of them are governors now, some of them are in the Senate, some of them are in Aso Rock.
“Why should a government decide to cause this kind of embarrassment and insecurity to the sense of what happened yesterday (Tuesday at the NDA)?” he queried, adding that terrorist financiers want to turn Nigeria to Taliban type of country.
