 Now, there are strong indications that the federal government may concede to the demands of the terrorists who attacked the Abuja Kaduna train and abducted no fewer than 68 passengers at the Qatari Qaduna State, at Qatari Abegipat in Qaduna State. Now, on March 28, this happened. The gang had demanded that the release of some of its detained commanders and financiers be done in exchange for abductees. About eight people were killed and 26 others were injured, and the gunmen bombed the rail track and fired gunshots at the train which was heading to Qaduna. Well joining us to discuss this is security consultant Kabir Adamo. Thank you very much, Mr. Adamo, for joining us. My pleasure, Miriam. Great. And welcome back. Thank you. So it's interesting, you know, we don't really necessarily know if it's in the nature of the government of Nigeria to negotiate with terrorists. I mean, we hear the United States saying that they do not negotiate with terrorists, but we have had peculiar situations where we'd had countries come to negotiate on our behalf for the release of some of the schoolgirls, and we've seen many times this happen. But in this case, the speculation is that we might have to exchange these abductees for terrorists who were detained in Nigeria. Paint me a picture of how this might be a good idea or not, because I'm struggling with, you know, painting that picture. So I mean, your struggle is more or less justified. We, to put it in simple terms, the government is in a bad position. Whatever government doesn't want to happen has happened. A significant number of our sisters, our brothers, you know, fathers, wives, children, pregnant women, some of them with delicate conditions have been abducted. No government would want to find themselves in that situation. Unfortunately, in the case of our situation in Nigeria, we are in that situation. The worst part is the total number of the abductees is not yet known, at least government has yet to officially announce that number. There has been an attempt by the railway corporation to put a figure, but then even that attempt, we know it's not correct. A newspaper, a national one, attempted to also put a figure, it interviewed one of the released victims and also looked at the pictures that were released by the abductors and came up with a figure of 68, but we also know that they are holding them at least in more than one camp. So it appears that that 68 is just in one camp and the number is more than that. So the summary is that the government has found itself in that part of the situation. And so it's now responded to the demands of this gunman, call them terrorists, call them bandits, whatever they are, government is forced to respond to their demands. And they have shown in clear terms that they are not, to them it's not a joke. They are ready to do anything to achieve their objective. And one of the objective, stated objective is to get some of their arrested brothers, whatever, that are in government custody released. The other one we know is also money. Even though they say they are not interested in money, but that's not true. They are interested in money. Then I can also tell you with all sense of responsibility that there is a political angle to all of this. So government is dealing with three more or less motives. The financial motive, this motive for prisoner exchange as it were, and then the political dimension. Now, whichever way the government goes, it's going to be stained. The second point that I would like to emphasize is that these guys are using social media to their advantage. When they released, when they collected a hundred million from the first person they released, they asked him to help them put up a video that they had made. So clearly they wanted that video to be out there. What are they driving at? They are using sentiment. The pressure that we are putting on government is to their advantage. Now, unfortunately, the countermeasures that I would have expected to see in psychops, the psychological operation that would help build the resilience of the Nigerian population against that type of psychological pressure by terrorists is, unfortunately, we've not done that. So clearly the more they put up these pictures, the more we are putting pressure on government. And the more we put pressure on government, the more government is forced to act. When they released the video of that baby, when they also mentioned that they were able to get doctors to attend to that lady, all of that is part of that psychological pressure. When the world has been care about their prisoners, they are going to a large extent even at the detriment of their own safety to get doctors to attend to a pregnant woman, all of that psychological of putting pressure on government. So in summary, government is not at the moment in a good position. We can discuss about how government can change this position, this very ugly position. Just before we get to the solution part, I'd like to dissect some things. The colorations of these acts by these so-called gunmen looks more like a slipper cell or a breakaway of Boko Haram. It seems very similar to what they would do. Again, if they are using the video angle, they are also putting out pictures because this is also a way, like you have said, to put pressure on government. Does it not seem like maybe this is Boko Haram changing its shape and form knowing that they may not have the kind of power that they used to have before because they have been broken into slipper cells or whatever you would want to call them. I do not know the security jargons. But again, I want to go back to, could we have avoided this position that we are in right now? Yes, we could have avoided it and I make bold to say with all sense of responsibility that we have not learned any lessons, even from this ugly incident and part of the reason is after the incident happened on the 28, five weeks after getting to the sixth week, I am not aware that a committee, an investigative committee has been set up to look at the reasons that allowed that incident to occur. I am not aware that a single official has been held responsible either for his negligence or his inability to implement because I was intelligent. We have been told clearly the NRC admitted that I was intelligent. The governor of Kaguna told the world that he did send an intelligent, at least a letter telling them that something like that would happen and advising that they should stop. So clearly there was negligence on certain parts and nobody has been held responsible for that. So it is avoidable and the fact that nobody has been held responsible even after the incident tells me that I would not learn a lesson. We need to start holding people accountable for this type of negligence that led to the death of nine persons. Eight persons died on the day of the incident, one that was injured, later died. He is an ex-military official and then a sizable number of Nigerians are currently in the hands of these guys and someone needs to be held accountable. So that is number one. It is avoidable. Number two, we need to do that investigation so that we take measures to present a reoccurrence. An adept investigation that tells, answers the question why, how, where, who would be able to tell you the mistakes that happened and that allowed that incident to occur and then automatically would not be able to ensure that those things don't repeat themselves. That is how normal people do it. I don't know why in our own case it's different. Frankly, this is not the way to do things. We need to change that. Start holding people accountable so that distance is not reoccurring. I'm looking for a better way to put it. For you, do not sound like broken records and people in your area of work who seem to, because I don't think that the problem here is the lack of people to handle intelligence. I'm trying to understand why we cannot use this intel, why we have not been able to properly handle this intel over time, because you've said it seems we've not learned from anything that's happened to us. And so we keep facing the same problem. Let me go back to the case of the abduction of students from last year. The same thing happened twice in a row, and then we had the NDA situation. So he just keeps piling up. What does this say about our defense and security personnel? What does this say about information management within the Nigerian security apparatuses? And really, does it seem to you or anybody else who's watching that we're really serious about dealing with the terrorism that we're facing as a country? Your question is loaded, and it would be very unfair if I just respond without giving some level of background. So as an example, this current administration, in its first term and the second term, has made security as one of its focal points. It has initially started with a three-point agenda, security diversifying the economy and then fighting corruption. So clearly, for eight security is key. When it came in the second term, it also prioritized security. Now, even the National Assembly, both the eight and nine National Assembly, have made security as part of their legislative agenda. Now, I doubt if there's any governor in this country that has not made security part of his agenda. So from a political point of view, it appears that there is an interest involving security. But then from a technical point of view, if we now start looking at the nitty-gritty, part of the challenge is that we're not holding the security sector accountable. After studying the security sector, one of the things that became obvious to me is that we lack a monitoring and evaluation mechanism to do performance appraisals. Now, there is no way in the modern world that you should not have some form of monitoring and evaluation mechanism, even within security. The idea is, well, security is confidential. It's not supposed to be open. And so we do have internal processes for ensuring standard. But that's not enough. We need to start making sure that the 2.4 trillion that we are putting in the budget for security, that somehow, somewhere, somebody comes to tell us that that's the thing that we gave him the money to do. He does it. And one of the best ways to measure that is how do they reduce the number of fatalities in the country? Last year, almost 9,000 people were killed. I want a situation where, at the end of 2022, the entire security sector would come to the National Assembly, or within the executive set-up, will go to the coordinating elements within the security sector, the National Security Advisor, the Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, Minister of Police Affairs, and then the presidency, and say, OK, you've given us 2.4 trillion. We've been able to reduce that 9,000 people that died in 2021 to, let's say, 1,000. And then I'll clap for them. But where we have a situation where that is not done, at the moment, there is no way we do that. We do not check the number of abductions, whether they are increasing or reducing. We do not check the number of fatalities, whether they are increasing or decreasing. All that happens, they tell us at the end of the year, they need more money, and then we give them more money. And it's become a cash cow. It's become a cesspool. Nobody really bought us to say, OK, how is that money being spent? I think that needs to change. Otherwise, that's how we'll be given more money, more money. There is no sector that enjoys the kind of money that security enjoys. At the federal level, 2.4 trillion. There is no state government that does not spend on security. There is no corporation in Nigeria that does not spend on security. There is no individual that does not spend on security in Nigeria. So if you put up that money, I make bold to say there is no sector that is consuming money like security. And that money is going into a drain. We are not checking how that money is being spent. So that's number one. Introduce money. Make sure we have a way of knowing what they are doing with that money. It's a very delicate area because there's going to be a lot of pushback from them going into the military legacy that we have. They would come up with this confidentiality for law security. No. What the UK does as an example is the UK has what they call a standard department. That standard department has become like an ombudsman for the security sector. It looks into the security sector and makes sure standard. People are dismissed from the security sector. I'm a journalist. Please, if you can, ask anyone in security to give you a database of the persons who have left all the security departments in Nigeria. Nobody has that. These are persons who are trained in weapons handling. These are persons who, for one reason or the other, are grieved. And so all these non-state actors need to do is put a little bit of money. And they're happy to do. Do you think it's easy to teach somebody how to handle an AK-47? And now we have people who are illiterate, who are now wielding AK-47. Where are they getting that training from? We're not thinking about it. So there is a lot. That's why it's not that easy to answer your question. You really have picked up all the questions I had in mind because I was going to ask about plugging those loopholes because we know that there are people who are moles. We have seen people who have aided and abated these terrorists. And also, we've seen that the more that we try to get close to dealing with this situation, the farther it looks like we're getting away from it. So I'm guessing that maybe the security needs to look within itself first and foremost before we start talking about other things. Exactly. Exactly. Enhance the monitoring and evaluation and auditing function within the internal first. And then, like they say in Europe, trust is good, but control is better. Let them enhance their own M&E and auditing capacities. Then let's also have the external M&E on them. And the National Assembly can play that role. So it's the oversight function. And that means anyone who is chairing any committee on security needs to have experts as part of his team. Not this situation where there are politicians really. The level of expertise is not that well. And sometimes they also need consultants who can help them in dismembering and reducing the lack of transparency within that system. So again, what is key is to hold them to account. We can't continue this situation where the security sector is not accountable. They just ask for money, we give them money. And that's all, frankly. Well, Kavira Damu is a security consultant. It's always a pleasure speaking with you. And once again, Baraka D'Salla. Thank you. You too. All right. Thank you so much. Well, we'll leave you with what Nigerians think about the federal government's alleged plan to exchange terrorists for hostages. Well, I am Mary Ann Acorn. I hope you enjoyed the show. We will be back tomorrow at 7 PM GMT with Plus Politics. Have a good evening. I would say governments should take their people back home to them for the innocent souls. Because if they didn't take the people back, the terrorists back to them, they will keep on terrorizing people every day. If they should give them the people, they will say, you know, innocent souls. That is what they can do because of the innocent people. Because they are demanding for their own people also. So I think they have to do it because of the innocent who they are, they will. There is no point of swapping whatever they want to use that word. Let them release those abdotted. People, let them release them back to society. And whatever the agreement those terrorists have with government, let them go and settle themself. And release our people back to us. For a government to give in to terrorism, it just speaks weakness in the government. Because when you yield to terrorists, when you yield to terrorists, that means they can always come back and make you bend to their demands. And when you do that, when you do that psychologically, you're giving them a green light to keep coming. And they're not just coming to come and cause havoc. There is an underground agenda. You see, there is nothing sacrificed to save a soul that is more than that. So to me, I will say, I will say, considering the people, considering those being held, we don't know if the future president of Nigeria is being held. We don't know if the savior of this nation, as we are looking at the economy today, everything is going down and down. We don't know if one of those that we help to live or revive the nation back is being held. Then if we say we cannot exchange their life with those terrorizing the nation, we might be on the wrong side.