For the second time since his assumption of office in May 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the immediate redeployment of his Chief Security Officer (CSO), Bashir Abubakar, replacing him with Idris Kassim Ahmed, who until his appointment; was Director of Enforcement at the headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS).
The new CSO was on Friday at the presidential villa, where he joined President Buhari at the Aso Rock Mosque for the ju’amat prayers. Although there is yet an official correspondent in connection with the redeployment, it was gathered that the former CSO is to proceed on an immediate “strategic course” at the National Defence University (Fadena), Buenos Aires, Argentina as a safe-facing measure.
Security source said DSS authorities had directed that the changes should take immediate effect. It was further learnt that the Administrative Officer of the Presidential Villa, Abubakar Maikano, has also been directed to stand in, any time the new CSO is not available. This, it was further learnt, is part of President Buhari’s move to reconfigure the security architecture around him.
It is the second time Buhari’s CSO has been replaced since he took office in May 2015. Two months into his administration in July 2015, the President replaced Abubakar with his erstwhile CSO, Abdulrahman Mani, who was fired over what insiders described as “shady deals” in fixing appointments and for “undermining” Mr. President. Mani committed various misdemeanors, including leaking Buhari’s itinerary to Diezani Alison-Madueke when Buhari travelled to London in May 2015.
Alison-Madueke, then Petroleum Resources Minister, had surprisingly travelled on the same British Airways flight with Buhari, sitting in the same cabin and right behind the then president-elect. The former minister normally flew private jets in and outside the country and her presence on the flight was not considered a coincidence. It was alleged that she wanted to curry favor with the new president-elect following a series of allegations of corruption against her, although her aides maintained that she was on a private trip for her son’s graduation.
Among his many indiscretions, Abubakar until his recent redeployment was said to have become a one-man cabal, too powerful to the detriment of the vested interests of the Buhari presidency. For instance, Huhuonline.com learnt that Abubakar prevented some of Buhari’s personal friends from gaining access to him and talked down on people, including the friends of the president, when they tried to complain. He was even rude to his immediate boss, the current Director-General of the DSS, Yusuf Bichi, and some DSS sources described him as “power-drunk.”
To the extent where he was overzealous, Abubakar personally expelled the State House Correspondent of the Punch newspaper, Olalekan Adetayo, without due to process; and defended his decision to expel the reporter, saying journalists have a responsibility to be patriotic in reporting matters of national importance.
However, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu could not be reached to confirm the allegation of high-handedness levelled against the replaced CSO as he neither returned calls nor text messages to his phone.
