Security expert Dr. Ona Ekhomu has advised the federal government to provide robust executive protection for the Governor of Borno State, as frequent attacks on the governor’s convoy would result in preventable deaths of his protectors and members of his entourage.
“These incessant attacks on Governor Zulum by Boko Haram portray Nigeria quite negatively and may lend credence to the assertion by some that Nigeria is now in a Hobbesian state of nature,” he added.
Reacting to the attack last Friday on the convoy of Governor Zulum near Baga in northern Borno State, Dr. Ekhomu, who is the National President of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria (AISSON) said that “it is obvious that the governor is targeted and the main purpose of the assassination attempt is to deter or stop the Governor from providing the productive leadership that is currently on display in Borno State”.
He said that the efforts by the Governor to return the IDPs to their ancestral homes was antithetical to Boko Haram goals of destroying the northeast.
Ekhomu described Zulum as a patriot who was in a hurry to develop Borno State despite the ongoing hot war. He warned that the enthusiasm of the Governor must be balanced against the grave threat of Boko Haram in northern Borno. He argued that it would be counter-intuitive to push to return IDPs to their homes since “northern Borno is obviously not safe enough for the IDPs to return. I would therefore advise making haste slowly to give the military the opportunity to defeat the enemy completely.”
Dr. Ekhomu said that he was afraid that citizens would be slaughtered in large numbers in the Baga area by ISWAP fighters. He said that the benign jihad which was waged by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi had given way to virulent and destructive jihad by the current leaders of ISWAP.
While commiserating with the families of soldiers, policemen, civilian JTF and others that lost their lives in the ambush, the security expert called for better executive protection for the state chief executive.
He referred to his recently published book on the insurgency in the northeast titled “Boko Haram: Security Considerations and the Rise of an Insurgency” and said that Chapter 11 of the book listed five reasons that Boko Haram/ISWAP targets VIPs for assassination: to silence the executive, to spread great fear among the populace, to show that it has absolute immunity, to force its extremist salafi-wahabi ideology on mainstream Muslims, and to advertise its evil nature and unalloyed savagery.
Describing Governor Zulum as an effective “war-time leader”, he called for strengthening the convoy of the governor when he is travelling to high risk areas such as Northern Borno. He called for robust protectional intelligence including technical intelligence to learn about plots against the governor.
He also called for positive vetting of the people who have access to the governor’s schedule as President Buhari had already declared the second attack to be an “orchestrated sabotage”. He said that all indications were that someone gave information about the governor’s itinerary to the enemy.
Said he: “the ferocity of the line ambush and the high number of military, law enforcement and vigilante personnel deaths shows that the terrorists believed that the governor was in the convoy. The mission was to take out the governor.”
Ekhomu said it was very fortunate that the Chief Executive chose to fly in a military helicopter to Baga rather than ride in the convoy. He said: “since Prof. Zulum has chosen not to hide in the safety of Government House Maiduguri, he needs to be adequately protected to do his work of governing the state”.
He urged security and intelligence officials to intensify efforts to check sabotage, sanitize the routes, venues and locations well in advance of the governor’s movements in order to avoid tragedy.
The security expert called for rigorous executive protection training for the guardians of the governor. He said: “just holding a rifle while accompanying a VIP isn’t all that executive protection entails.” He insisted that the drivers in the governor’s convoy must receive practical training in security driving including bootleg turns, J-turns, ramming maneuvers, off-road recovery and other techniques to save lives in an ambush.