National Security Organization - Legacy

Legacy

With the creation of the State Security Service (SSS), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), former staff of the NSO were absorbed into these successor organizations; officers of the internal security directorate were inherited by the SSS while officers of the external intelligence directorate were absorbed by the NIA. The new military government appointed Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo a former police officer as the first Director General of the SSS while Lt. Col A.K Togun formerly of the DMI was appointed as his deputy. Chief Albert Horsfall, the former deputy director of the NSO was appointed as the first Director General of the NIA, he was assisted by Ambassador Abdullahi Ibrahim Atta the former director of external intelligence also at the NSO. Other NSO alumni include Mr. Peter Nwaodua, the sixth DG SSS (actually the third but the SSS consider all former NSO DGs as SSS DGs) who was also a former National Security Adviser to the President of the Gambia. Mr Jonathan Okechukwu Obuseh was also drafted into the SSS from the NSO where he retired as a director, he later went on to establish the private security firm, Sovereign Guards. Alhaji Bello Lafiaji, a former Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), who was also a former policeman and pioneer member of the NSO, was drafted into the new SSS as the first Officer-in-Charge of the Ajaokuta office.

In September 1990 Major, the Babangida administration reshuffled the leadership of the SSS and NIA with Horsfall taking over as DG SSS and Haliru Akilu, formerly the DG of the DIA assuming the DG NIA position while Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo left his position as DG SSS to become the minister of state for police affairs. Ambassador Zakari Y. Ibrahim, the third Director General of the NIA and a one time national counter-terrorism coordinator was also a former Director of Finance and Administration at the NSO.

The SSS has been criticized for operating no less like its predecessor the NSO. In 1986, barely four months after the establishment of the SSS, the Director General of the agency Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo and his deputy Lt. Col. Tunde Togun were indicted in the killing of the editor of the Newswatch magazine, Mr. Dele Giwa by a Letter Bomb delivered to his home.