“You can’t imagine what is going on in Abuja. I went through the DSS Report. 44 reports were given (to the authorities) before the attack on Kuje Prison.”
Hon Idris Wase, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives published in Nigerian Tribune, Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Shocking as the revelation quoted in the opening paragraph is, it is not the first time that the intelligence community would send distress messages to the authorities, and they would either be ostentatiously ignored or sidestepped until the tragedy alluded actually occurs. Intelligence is not just what the Department of State Services writes up in their reports, it includes such alerts as were raised by the Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Bello, two or some years back that Boko Haram had gained footholds in his state and had even hoisted their flag. As far as this columnist recalls, there was no official response to that information except in the Senate where some senators even shed tears, shouted their heads hoarse, that the country was fast losing the battle to terrorists. One of the concerns at that time was that Niger State is extremely close to Abuja and that this meant that Abuja was within striking distance of Boko Haram. In the same vein, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, had warned serially that Kaduna is being slowly submerged by terrorists belonging to Islamic State in West Africa Province and other Islamic militant groups. I do not recall that any decisive action had been taken with respect to El Rufai’s heads-up.
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