An Encounter With Lawal Daura, By Yushau A. Shuaib
It was 24 hours after the official release of my book, “An Encounter with the Spymaster” in July 2017 that I received an invitation from a top retired Airforce officer for a meeting with the then Director General of Department of State Service (DSS), Lawal Daura.
Before the invitation, a Presidential spokesperson, Mallam Garba Shehu had publicly attacked the book in a press statement which he described as “an attempt to rewrite the history of the War on Terror Campaign.”
Though I was not sceptical or apprehensive about the scheduled meeting that day, I nevertheless told the retired military officer that I wouldn’t be able to attend because I was on a casual dress of Jeans and T-Shirt instead of my usual traditional attire for public outings and visitations.
The Officer countered that my dress did not matter. I, therefore joined the team comprising top retired officers from the Nigerian Airforce, Navy, Army, intelligence Services and a strategic officer. Present at the meeting were top DSS directors with the Director-General himself.
Meanwhile, that visit to the DSS Headquarters afforded me the second opportunity of a face-face encounter with Lawal Daura. I had previously met him at Heathrow Airport, London on the night of May 14, 2017, probably after he might have met President Muhammadu Buhari who was then on Medical Vacation in Britain.
Though one could have misgivings on some of his official roles, Daura naturally wears infectious smiles, decked with disarming contour of glowing white beards. The aura projected him as a harmless and innocent person who cannot hurt a fly. I walked up to him and surprisingly, he responded calmly and briefly to my penetrating questions about his office, especially on his refusal to appoint a spokesperson for his agency and other contentious issues. With reassurance, he gave what he called genuine reasons for the excuses and excesses.
That visit to his office, afforded him the opportunity to inform us about major accomplishments and some misgivings about his office. Ever-smiling, Daura was eloquent, smart and intelligent in response to some of the issues we discussed.
Daura who was sacked a few days after his 65th birthday, was born in Daura, Katsina State and started his career in the State Security Service in 1982 and rose to the rank of Director. He was once a spokesperson of the agency and Deputy Director Presidential Communication, Command and Control Centre at the Abuja. He also served as the State Director of Security Service at various times in Kano, Sokoto, Edo, Lagos, Osun and Imo States.
It’s not unlikely that some of his achievements may have been overshadowed by the many controversies trailing his tenure as the Director General of the agency. He was particularly responsible for the release of many hostages from the Boko Haram gulag. In fact, the release of UNIMAID lecturers, including a group of oil explorers and policewomen that were held captive for more than half a year could be attributed to his efforts. His agency played prominent roles in the alleged exchange of Boko Haram Commanders with many Chibok and Dapchi Girls. The agency was also directly involved in the arrest of major kidnap kingpins and top ritualists and provided intelligence to other services for such arrests nationwide.
He was also responsible for the arrest of a member of the controversial AVM John Ode Presidential Arm Probe Panel for alleged extortion on behalf of other members and for money laundering and illegal possession of firearms. The suspect, retired Air Commodore Mohammed Umar was nevertheless illegally detained for five months by DSS before he was released after a threat by Justice Dimgba.
There was also the glaring inter-agency rivalry among security agencies which triggered the DSS to submit two damning ‘security report’ on EFCC Boss, Ibrahim Magu to the Senate, warning lawmakers not to confirm his colleague’s appointment. Lawal Daura only reported directly to President Muhammadu Buhari and no one else.
It is an undeniable fact that in the three years of Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the DSS under Lawal Daura has succeeded in some of its statutory mandates but unfortunately, it is notorious in defying the constitution by disobeying court orders and detaining citizens arbitrarily.
While it sounds childish the claim by political elements that the recent siege on NASS was a conspiracy between Lawal Daura and Senate President Bukola Saraki, the question on the lips of many and begging for an answer is: could the Kwara man be more influential and sophisticated than the Number One man from Katsina?
Could the same Senate President influence the flagrant disregard of court orders by DSS in the illegal detentions of former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, and a leader of the Shiite movement, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky since 2015?
Could Saraki have engineered the October 2016 dead-in-the-night invasion of homes of senior judges across the country by the DSS with the arrest of seven judges, including two of the Supreme Court who were later discharged except one that died during the trial?
Who could have also influenced the violation of a court order and forcible ejection of Former DG DSS, Kayode Are from an Ikoyi property in December 2015?
Have we forgotten in a hurry how in November 2017, the EFCC secured an order to arrest Ita Ekpeyong, a former DG DSS and this action was scuttled due to the activities of DSS under Lawal Daura and the roles he played in the saga involving Ayo Oke, the erstwhile DG of NIA?
Could another opposition element to President Buhari also used DSS to clampdown and arrest several lawmakers of Ekiti State House of Assembly in March 2016 and the invasion of the National Assembly and stealing of the Mace of the Senate of the Federal Republic by thugs suspected to have been procured by an APC Senator, Ovie Omo-Agege, from Delta State in April 2018?
On whose directive was the unconstitutional attempt to remove Governor Samuel Ortom in Benue State in July 2018 when DSS and the police provided security for eight lawmakers to take over the House of Assembly of 30 members? What about the incident in 2015 when DSS operatives raided the Government House Uyo, Akwa Ibom State purportedly in search of arms, ammunition and a huge stash of United States dollars, and which till date, no charges have been filed three years after? Whose footprints were those?
Were journalists spared the fangs of the white-bearded man? Was it the opposition that ordered Daura’s DSS to detain Jones Abiri, a journalist from Bayelsa State from July 2016 to July 2018 without being charged to court? Were the ‘wailers’ also responsible for the detention of Tony Ezimakor, a journalist with Daily Independent who was threatened to disclose his sources of information?
By the way, who could have influenced the naked display of nepotism where 51 candidates from Katsina were recruited into DSS as against 44 successful candidates from the entire South-East of five states in 2016?
Could Lawal Daura have attained and achieved some of the feats, the pros and cons without the knowledge of the Commander-in-Chief since he only took orders from one person? Or should we agree with the political permutations that his positive deeds are attributed to President Buhari while his negative actions were influenced by the ‘Sarakis’ of this world and other opposition elements?
Your Guess is as good as mine.
Yushau Shuaib
The President And His Spy Master, By Emmanuel Yawe
In the build up to the 2015 elections, the lot fell on me to address a political rally in Wukari, Taraba State. A prominent national politician was originally billed to do the job but he was busy with something else more important so he delegated me.
As an amateur politician, I thought I did my best. The focus of my message to the assembled crowd was that they should vote for General Muhammadu Buhari who was a presidential candidate of the APC. I recalled my knowledge of him as a news reporter in 1983 when as the GOC in Jos, he chased some renegade Chadian soldiers who invaded Nigeria and also in 1984 when he swiftly put down the Maitastine insurgency in Yola the Gonogola State capital as a military Head of State.
I told the crowd that as a reporter, I had covered both events for the New Nigerian newspapers and I was sure Buhari was better placed than Goodluck Jonathan to tackle the insurgency in the North East which had become a regional, national and international embarrassment.
Sadly, the crowd did not respond favorably to my spontaneous oratory. Where I expected cheers, I was greeted with jeers. My speech got the wrong mood of the crowd. As a Christian, talking to a predominantly Christian audience, they expected me to speak in support of a fellow Christian – Goodluck Jonathan who was in the race against a Muslim- Muhammadu Buhari. In my naivety as an inexperienced politician, I based my argument not on religious sentiment but competence to handle security matters.
The security situation in Wukari at the time of my speech was rather perilous. Clashes between herdsmen and sedentary farmers in the hinterland surrounding the town had snowballed into major confrontations in the town itself. In the past two decades or so, Wukari had gained its fame from the ethnic wars between the Tiv and the Jukun. But by 2014, the story had changed; it was no longer ethnic conflict but religious.
The fight between herdsmen and sedentary farmers heightened religious tension in the town. It became a fight between Muslims and Christians. At the time of my speech, Wukari had stopped burning because having reduced the whole town to rubbles, there was really nothing more to burn. For a Christian to mount the soapbox under such an atmosphere to drum up support for a Muslim was considered heresy by my largely Christian audience.
I was lucky to escape without any harm. My father was not so lucky in his days. In 1960, when he had tried to drum up support for his political hero at our ancestral village of Shagu in the precincts of Wukari, he paid dearly for it. He mounted the improvised podium made up of a market table and bellowed “Tarka, Tarka, Tarka” in an effort to warm up the small crowd at the market for his lecture. Suddenly the ubiquitous Native Authority Police appeared and violently pushed him down from the ‘podium’.
Those of us watching were shocked. As a professional teacher, my father was always impeccably attired in the accoutrements of an English gentleman. When he moved, his steps were measured and calculated. But the Native Authority Policemen who proceeded to put him under arrest after violently attacking him on the podium had no time for all these niceties. As they marched him to the home of the local judge, the alkali, those of us who followed could see that their sense of speed was not in accord with my old man’s sense of dignity.
By the time we got to the alkali’s house, the Native Authority Policemen proudly announced to him that that they had arrested the troublemaker. The alkali was then having his bath and from the comfort of his bathroom came the damning judgment which sentenced my father to six months imprisonment. From the way he pronounced it, it was as if his bath would take him six months because he promised to look into the case after he finished taking his bath.
You can now see why I was lucky to have gotten away with only jeers in my pro Buhari speech in 2014 in Wukari.
At the 2015 presidential elections, Muhammadu Buhari had a resounding victory regardless of the hostile reaction I experienced at Wukari. I was happy he won, hoping he was going to tackle the insecurity problems as I tried to convince my hostile crowd in my ill-fated lecture. In my enthusiasm, I sent frantic messages to my friend Ahmed Salkida who had fled into exile after constant harassment from security agencies. I told him to come back home, a more responsible group had taken over, he should come and help Nigeria out of the Boko Haram scourge – his field of expertise.
Eventually, Ahmed Salkida came back to Nigeria and after meetings with the DSS came to brief me. I still remember his exacts words ringing in my disturbed ear that morning at a secret meeting point in a decrepit mechanic workshop. In response to my question on how he found the mental status of the security men this time as compared to the Goodluck Jonathan era, he simply replied: “Oga, nothing has changed”. He left me cold.
My little knowledge of the fight against internal insurgency is that a lot depends on intelligence gathering. Ahmed Salkida had and still has a throve of information that could be useful. Tragically, our security agencies in the Jonathan era frustrated, bullied and drove him into exile; and under Buhari, the government that advertised itself as the agent of change, here was Salkida telling me that nothing has changed.
The vortex of this monumental failure in intelligence gathering under President Buhari is to be found in Lawal Daura, his preferred spymaster. I have said it on several occasions on this page that President Buhari, my preferred candidate in the 2015 elections is poorly served.
When President Buhari nominated the name of Magu to the Senate for confirmation as substantive Chairman of the EFCC, Daura countered with a damning report against the preferred candidate of the president – not once but twice. Amazingly, the President Commander in Chief allowed Daura to stay in office and continue contradicting him.
Not only was Daura satisfied with contradicting his employer in the executive branch, he moved over to wage war on the Judiciary; he sent hooded armed operatives to invade the homes of judges, some of them of the apex court in the wee hours of the night. These were things that we used to hear Idi Amin Dada do in Uganda in the 70’s. We used to say then that such things will never happen in Nigeria. Thanks to Daura, Buhari’s spy master, we are witnesses to it today.
Having overpowered the president in the executive branch over Magu’s appointment, invaded the judiciary at midnight night and disobeyed court orders, the dream to complete the capture of the whole federal government with an attack on the legislature was only a matter of time to become a reality.
The news about the Daura saga of last week is not that the all-powerful spymaster of President Buhari was sacked. It is that it took so long to kick him out. President Buhari should have known that his spymaster was nothing but a quack. [myad]