BEVERLY HILLS, July 04, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has removed his Chief Security Officer (CSO), Mr. Abdulrahman Mani, from his position following the friction between the operative who is from the Department of State Security Services (SSS) and the President’s Aide-de-Camp (ADC), Lt. Col. Mohammed Abubakar.
Mani’s removal partly validates THEWILL’s earlier report, which quoted Presidential Villa sources as saying the President would replace his CSO and his ADC after he sacked the Director of the SSS, Mr. Ita Ekpeyong, on Friday.
Mr. Abubakar Usman, another SSS personnel has been appointed as new CSO to the President.
The erstwhile CSO and the ADC have been in the middle of a cold war over the control of security at the Presidential Villa and the protection of the President.
Mani’s Memo Forced His Sack
Presidential Villa sources say Mr. Mani was removed from his position because of a leaked memo, which underlined the internal conflict between the former CSO, and the President’s personal bodyguards, who sources said are a loyal clique, who were trained in Israel and North Korea under the General Sani Abacha military regime.
The bodyguards have the backing of the President’s ADC, who prefers to have them and soldiers as the President close security unit. Sources said the bodyguards protected Buhari during the presidential campaigns.
THEWILL gathered that shortly after Mr. Mani was drafted by the SSS as President Buhari’s CSO in May, he repeatedly had brushes with the bodyguards and soldiers around the President. This reached a peak last week when he wrote a memo restricting them from closely protecting the president, countering an earlier memo commissioned by the ADC with the approval of the President.
The source said the President saw Mr. Mani’s action as insubordination, which also caused the sack of an Administrative Officer in the CSO’s office, identified as Mr. Lawal. His offence was that he circulated the memo and leaked it to the press.
The source said Mani and Lawal have been transferred to Ebonyi and Oyo states, respectively.
In his counter memo partly reproduced below, Mr. Mani had defended his decision to allow SSS personnel form the nucleus of the President’s protection saying, “The extant practice, the world over, is that VIP protection, which is a specialised field, is usually handled by the Secret Service, under whatever nomenclature.
“They usually constitute the inner core security ring around every principal. The Police and the military by training and mandate are often required to provide secondary and tertiary security cordons around venues and routes.
“However, all other security agencies, including the army, the police and others, also have their roles to play. It is on this note that heads of all security agencies currently in the Presidential Villa and their subordinates are enjoined to key into the existing command and control structure. They are to work in harmony with each other in full and strict compliance with the demands of their statutorily prescribed responsibilities.
“Meanwhile, joint training programmes and other incentives will be worked out in the days ahead to ensure that all security personnel at the Presidential Villa are properly educated to understand their statutory roles and responsibilities.
“This is with a view to avoiding obvious grandstanding, overzealousness, limited knowledge or outright display of ignorance in future.”
The memo, which copied the National Security Adviser; the Chief of Defence Staff and the Director-General of DSS, cited Section 2(I)(ii) of Instrument No.SSS 1 of May 23, 1999 made pursuant to Section 6 of the National Security Agencies Decree of 1986, which has been re-enacted as Section 6 of NSA Act CAP N74 LFN 2004.
