Professor Isaac Olawale Albert has rejected claims that Nigeria’s intelligence-gathering system is weak, arguing that the country has highly trained intelligence professionals but often fails to act on the information they provide.
Albert, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Ibadan (UI), said the major problem confronting Nigeria was not necessarily the collection of intelligence but the failure of political authorities and security managers to translate early warnings into timely action.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with PrimeStar News Online, Albert said he had worked closely with intelligence professionals in Nigeria and abroad and had extensive experience with the country’s security institutions.
He recalled his relationship with officers of the Department of State Services (DSS) and his work at the Institute of Security Studies, now the National Institute for Security Studies.
Albert also mentioned the Directorate of Military Intelligence and intelligence units within other security agencies, saying Nigeria had personnel capable of gathering and analysing critical information.
According to him, the distinction between intelligence gathering and effective security response was crucial.
He described the problem as one of “early warning” versus “early response”.
Albert said intelligence officers could provide detailed information about an impending attack, but the information would only be useful if those responsible for security acted on it.
“If you tell a political leader that terrorists are going to bomb at eight o’clock and the political leader says, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ who is responsible?” he asked.
He said intelligence reports could sometimes be ignored, discarded or even mishandled.
Albert recalled an incident in which confidential intelligence reports were allegedly found discarded on the street and being used by someone selling groundnuts.
He said such incidents demonstrated that collecting intelligence alone could not protect the country.
“Intelligence can be collected and passed to political leaders, but they may ignore it,” he said.
Albert therefore challenged the repeated narrative that Nigeria’s insecurity was primarily the result of poor intelligence gathering.
He argued that security personnel also needed the authority to act on intelligence.
According to him, even when security personnel are prepared to act, political instructions can prevent them from doing so.
He said that when security officers are ordered to withdraw from an operation, they are expected to obey, regardless of the intelligence available to them.
Albert maintained that people who routinely describe Nigeria’s intelligence-gathering system as weak may not understand how the system actually operates.
He said the country needed stronger political will to make effective use of the intelligence already available to the authorities.
