Alhaji Lawan Daura, the Director General of Nigeria’s domestic spy agency, has been sacked. It cannot but be in connection with the wonderland performance that greeted Nigerians as they woke up earlier today to watch a security siege on the national legislature by operatives of the Directorate of the State Security, (DSS). The question though is whether he is the real culprit or just a fall guy. Since when did the Acting Vice-President acquire the power to sack the head of the DSS who could write a counter-assessment for a nominee of the president himself in the case of Chairmanship of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC)? Unless it is the beginning of a self-cleansing system by the regime or the DG, DSS went into a cabalistic overdrive, this is unlikely to be the last of the script of power from which confusing signals have been manifesting.
If it was a cabalistic overdrive, the president himself must have been over-embarrassed by it and asked the Vice-President to effect the sack. If it is the beginning of a regime self-purification, then it means this sack would be followed by a much more comprehensive re-arrangement of power. If that doesn’t happen, then more people would begin to ask more questions.
At a time the fear that the confusion which has enveloped the country could spiral out of control into a meltdown, it would seem only something drastic enough could re-assure and restore any semblance of state neutrality. Whether the Vice-President does that or the president does so upon his arrival, the regime appears to have a lot to do.
Three full years on the job as DG, DSS, (2015 – 2018) at a time so much have happened in security, political and financial circles is not a small experience for the departing security czar. He must be undergoing the exit rituals for all such appointments by now.
