There is a massive outcry following the revelation that soldiers and politicians are serving as informants to terrorists operating in the country. Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum, yesterday, alleged that some Nigerian politicians and members of the armed forces are acting as informants and collaborators for Boko Haram insurgents.

Zulum’s allegation has raised serious concern, with civil society organisations (CSOs) and security experts calling on the authorities to be decisive and flush the rotten eggs.

According to them, information leak is emboldening terrorists, and was responsible for the resurgence of terrorism, especially in the North East, North West and the North Central regions.

The CSOs said they were not surprised by Governor Zulum’s revelation that terrorist groups such as Boko Haram had informants among security agencies and other influential persons.
The CSOs that spoke to LEADERSHIP include Transparency International (TI), the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG).

Their leader, Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, said the Borno State Governor’s revelation was a confirmation of the suspicion of many Nigerians that the terror group, Boko Haram, and other terrorists were working in collusion with security agents.

“The revelation by Governor Zulum has further confirmed the suspicion or the allegation by many Nigerians that the terror groups, the bandits, the Boko Haram, are doing this with either connivance or with information they access from the officials of security agencies.

“Some of the security officers reveal this information to continue to have this problem, and some of them probably were either recruited directly or indirectly by these terror groups.

“So, it is not surprising. It is something that has confirmed the suspicion and the allegations that many Nigerians are making: that for this war to remain or stay this long, obviously there must be internal leakages from our security forces because the materialism and the collapse of patriotism in Nigeria from both the people in uniform and the people in private clothes culminated in the escalation of insecurity in Nigeria.”

Rafsanjani pointed out that if those saddled with the task of ending the terrorists’ onslaught on Nigeria were patriotic, the problem would have been solved by now.

“Because if people are patriotic and they love the country and do not turn to materialism as a basis for anything in this country, definitely by now we should be able to substantially deal with the attacks of terrorists – Boko Haram, bandits and all other criminals. Now, we have gone to the extent of seeing terrorists or bandits coming openly on social media. Yet, a government that quickly tracks people protesting against bad governance cannot track these people.

“So, this also sends a wrong signal to Nigerians to assume and believe that these guys may have a network within the security agencies that they are using to run away from any possible attacks from the security agencies,” he said, adding that the authorities must ensure that the rotten eggs are shown the way out.

Barrister Mike Ejiofor, a former Department of State Services (DSS) director, corroborated the Borno governor’s statement.

Ejiofor, who was abducted by bandits a few years ago, recalled that one of his kidnappers was a serving soldier, adding that there were rotten eggs in the nation’s security architecture.

The former DSS director called for concerted efforts to purge the system of bad eggs in order to stand a good chance of solving the banditry and terrorism menace.
According to him, it would not be possible for terrorists to overrun a military formation without insider sabotage.

He said, “What Zulum said is a fact. I can confirm that Boko Haram cannot operate in isolation without insider connivance; otherwise, how can they attack a military formation? These people are not proficient in handling arms to the extent of dislodging an army formation. There are insiders and saboteurs within the system. When I was kidnapped, one of the people who kidnapped me was a soldier.

“We need to do some in-house cleaning. We must purge the military, security agencies, and politicians of rotten eggs. There are some rotten eggs sabotaging the efforts of our military,” he said

For his part, a security professional, Abdullahi Mohammed Jabi, said the governor’s comment was based on intelligence available to him and must be taken seriously.
Jabi called on relevant agencies to sit up and purge themselves of rotten eggs.

“For him to say that, he has probably received the intelligence report. He is passionate about his people.

He is concerned about the security of his citizens. He knows from the report that this is happening, so he needs to work on it and bring it to the public.”

The director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Markus Kangye, did not respond to messages for comment.

LEADERSHIP