AMIDST all these thunderous chaos occasioned by terrorist attacks across the country within the space of one week of madness from December 24, 2010 to December 29, 2010; amidst the violence, mayhem and pogrom perpetrated by the terrorists; sectarian extremists and other sundry criminals stands the Nigerian security and intelligence community – confused, looking dazed and dazzled, helpless and impotent, looking stupid and forlorn of hope, overwhelmed and brow-beaten, shame-faced and completely unable to stand up to and unravel the identities of the enemies of the State.
Never before has a security and intelligence community been confronted by medley of terrorist attacks under its very nose. It was so overwhelmed that it cried out for foreign assistance in investigation and analysis of the ballistic evidences collected the various scenes of the incidents as done by the Minister of Defence, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode followed by the actual arrival of the team of US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counter-terrorist experts in Nigeria in early January 2011.
Never before has a security and intelligence community been confronted by many theoretical possibilities of factors and forces behind the attacks which have to be thoroughly and impartially investigated for justification and validation of such possibilities.
So what is wrong with the Nigerian security and intelligence community? Why have the recent changes of leadership personnel at the top echelon of the military, security and intelligence agencies not produced the much needed security of purposes and objectives (national security strategy) and much expected platform for new security orientation, values and inter-agency coordination? Why is the country been constantly taken by strategic and tactical surprises despite evident advance warnings? How can we really describe this horrific situation that presents clear and present dangers that imperil lives and properties of citizens, corporate and the State itself?
Without mincing words, the state of external and internal conditions of the security and intelligence agencies is inevitably the mirror-reflection of the Nigerian State and society itself of which many of the ills afflicting it are directly linked to corruption, all forms of organized crime (even though individualized in most cases), ferocious struggle for power among the politicians who trample down upon the rights and lives of citizens based upon the Darwinian rule of survival of the strongest, eliminating the weak and the innocent in the process, etc, which in turn inevitably weaken rather than strengthen  the performance of the national power structures.
Essentially the stand of the security and intelligence agencies reflects the position of the Nigerian State in its weakest point of vulnerability: internal security.
The State’s incapacity to control internal security excluding the use of excessive and brutal force is of serious concern since the return to civil democratic rule in mid-1999 and a symptomatic expression of the fragility of the State itself. The spate of terrorist attacks, ethno-religious strife over the years, Niger Delta militancy, etc, are indicators of this fragility of the State and political instability in the country, putting pressures and stress on democratic endurance under-girded by corruption, poor governance system and structures, economic meltdown and poverty. Trigger mechanisms of this political instability and tests of this fragility include hotly contested elections leading to rigging, violence, petitions and litigations; imposition of unpopular policies, death of a key figure leading to fresh power struggles among successor candidates and pretenders to the throne, etc.
The series of failures of the Nigerian security and intelligence community highlighted both the importance and the difficulty of reforming the security and intelligence services in countries like Nigeria just emerging out from authoritarian military rule. Everything seems to be so muddled up against the background of the inability to define and determine in concrete terms what our national consensus goals and/or objectives should be in the next 25-50 years.
An attitudinal and altitudinal change is necessary towards our own security and welfare and by the security and intelligence sector. “But change”, according to Professor Shirley Ann Jackson, the President of Resenlear Polytechnic Institute, USA, “is the only real constant. Our continually shifting world challenges us to refresh, to remove and replace, to modify, to alter and adjust – in effect, to dust our intellectual house for the new world order, which is flat and integrated, yet asymmetrical, and unstable” (Shirley Ann Jackson: “Empires of the Mind”, American Council on Education, 2007, p. 14).