Intelligence community failed to foresee B’Haram’s danger, says Gen. Davis

As Nigeria searches for a lasting solution to the security challenges posed by Boko Haram insurgency, the Acting Chief of Defence Intelligence Major General Sardauna Davies has said the inability of the country’s intelligence services to predict the threats more than a decade ago, has placed the country in the quagmire it is today.

The DIA made the assertion yesterday in Abuja at the opening ceremony of a 2-day training conference for Deputy Defence attachés/Advisers and Librarians in Abuja that a new Defence intelligence template is needed on which intelligence reporting can be based.

He posited that the Boko Haram terrorism started more than 15 years ago in the Middle East with all indicators pointing to it spilling to the Western Sahara, and it should have been predicted at that time as an emerging threat by the Nigerian intelligence services, but they failed to do so.

“As such, we could not take appropriate preventive measures to nip it in the bud before it constituted a major security challenge to the nation.”

He said considering the burgeoning sophistication of the society, coupled with increasing violence, much appraisal of the tactical strategies and innovative tactics to curtail these threats needs to be formulated as the threats evolve.