The Defence Intelligence Agency, the intelligence arm of the Defence Headquarters has declared a retired Nigerian Navy Commodore, Kunle Olawunmi wanted for subtly exposing in an interview, how the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is shielding high profile politicians whom Boko Haram terrorists named as their sponsors.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that the DIA requested Commodore Olawunmi to come to its headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday with his international passport,
A source in the military said: ‘The agency has declared retired Navy Commodore Kunle Olawunmi wanted for spilling the beans over Boko Haram sponsors in the Buhari regime. They asked him to come with his international passport on Tuesday to the DIA office in Abuja.’
Africa Today News, New York recalls that Navy Commodore Olawunmi had spoken on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme on Tuesday, condemning an attack by bandits on the Kaduna campus of Nigeria’s foremost military university, the Nigerian Defence Academy, where two military officers were killed and another kidnapped.
The Professor of Global Security Studies had said, ‘It is an aberration; you don’t attack the Nigerian Defence Academy and get away with it. In 2017, I carried out an investigation by the Minister of Defence that wanted me to check what was going on with the training and the security there (NDA). I remember I spent about a week in the NDA with the commandant and the staff but something struck me: every Friday, the gate of NDA is thrown open and everybody has access to pray in the mosque.
“On Fridays, you are going to see the same thing happening across all military formations in the country. If you go to Defence Headquarters, I served at the Defence Headquarters as the Deputy Director, Defence Administration, between 2015 and 2017, throughout my two years at Defence Headquarters, I received visitors twice because of the strict security architecture there but every Friday, the gate of the Defence Headquarters is thrown wide open for everybody to come in and observe Juma’at.
“That is the time the terrorists have the time to profile our security environment. It has always been the case. I have served the military intelligence for the past 35 years. Our problem is religion and socio-cultural.”
Olawunmi went on to add that he was a member of the Intelligence Brief at the Defence Headquarters during the leadership of the then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin (retd.).
The intelligence expert said he told the then CDS that the centre of gravity of the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the North-East and spreading to other parts of Nigeria was the sponsor.
‘I told General Olonisakin then that the centre of this problem cannot be solved the same way we solved the problem of the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta problem was solved during (Ex-President Umaru) Yar’adua basically by me and I told them that we can’t use that same template for Boko Haram.
‘I told General Olonisakin to look at the centre of gravity of the problem. I was made a member of the committee in 2016-2017 including former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru that died.
‘I told them that the centre of gravity of Boko Haram in Nigeria is the sponsors of the programme. It was beyond us because the job we needed to do was kinetic but we cannot resolve the issues of sponsors of Boko Haram that were in Buhari’s government that we know them. That was why we couldn’t pursue that aspect that could have resolved the issue because we need to arrest people.
‘Recently, 400 people were gathered as sponsors of Boko Haram, why is it that the Buhari government has refused to try them? Why can’t this government bring them to trial if not that they are partisan and part of the charade that is going on?
‘You remember this Boko Haram issue started in 2012 and I was in the military intelligence at that time. We arrested those people. My organisation conducted interrogation and they (suspects) mentioned names. I can’t come on air and start mentioning names of people that are presently in government that I know that the boys that we arrested mentioned. Some of them are governors now, some of them are in the Senate, some of them are in Aso Rock’ he alleged.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK