Presidency: War In Aso Rock, Kyari Battles NSA

By Fola James

One powerful member of Aso Rock cabal has broken ranks from the prestigious kitchen cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari

Babagana Mungonu, the National Security Adviser, NSA has left the ranks of powerful politicians in the presidency, mostly from Borno State, after his revelation that the president’s chief of staff,  Abba Kyari is responsible for the failure of security chiefs to contain spate of insecurity across the country.

Both the NSA and Kyari are from Borno State, the epicenter of Boko Haram insurgency.

Pressure has mounted on Buhari to sack the service chief over their failure to defeat the insurgents and bandits wrecking havoc in the north east and other parts of the north.

For instance, 30 persons were killed in Katsina, the president home state on Sunday.

In spite of the apparent failure of the security chiefs, the president has refused to sack them.

But the NSA has now opened a new twist in the matter.

In a new memo to the service chiefs Mungonu directed them to stop taking orders from Kyari.

The NSA is supposed to supervise security top brass in the country under normal circumstances, security experts told the magazine.

Apparently, the situation has not been so and the NSA believe his power has been usurped by Kyari, which he’s now ready to take back.

Mungonu said in a recent letter to Buharis service chiefs:

“Chief of staff to the president is not a presiding head of security, neither is he sworn to an oath of defending the country.”
They must now take orders from him, he said. Since Kyari is not the NSA “As such, unprofessional practices such as presiding over meetings with service chiefs and heads of security organisations as well as ambassadors and high commissioners to the exclusion of the NSA and/or supervising ministers are a violation of the Constitution and directly undermine the authority of Mr President.”

This is the only way to defeat insurgency and return normalcy to the country, he said.

“Such acts and continues meddlesomeness by chief of staff have not only ruptured our security an defence efforts, but have slowed down any meaningful gain that Mr President has sought to achieve,” Mungonu, a retired major general said in the memo.