Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu has appointed two senior security officers in charge of the West African country's domestic and international intelligence.
In the appointments, Mohammed Mohammed will lead the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) as its director-general, while Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi will head the Department of State Services (DSS), also as a director-general.
In Nigeria, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is in charge of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations, while the Department of State Services (DSS) handles domestic intelligence and counterintelligence.
Put differently, NIA focuses on external threats to Nigerian national interests, while DSS focuses on neutralising domestic threats, enforcing criminal law in Nigeria, and protecting senior government officials, including the president.
Insiders leading security agencies
NIA's new Director-General Mohammed joined the agency in 1995, and has served in different roles within the unit.
He was subsequently promoted to the rank of director, and thereafter appointed as the head of Nigerian Mission to Libya.
The diplomat had previously been posted to North Korea, Pakistan and Sudan. He also had a stint at State House, Abuja.
DSS's new Director-General Ajayi is also an insider of the agency, where he has risen through the ranks.
Former office holders resign
Prior to his latest appointment, he was the Assistant Director-General of the DSS.
Before that, he was DSS's director in Bauchi, Enugu, Bayelsa, Rivers and Kogi states in different times.
The appointments of Mohammed and Ajayi come after the former office holders resigned.
"President Tinubu expects that the new security chiefs will work assiduously to reposition the two intelligence agencies for better results," President Tinubu's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Ajuri Ngelale said in a statement on Monday.
Ngelale added that Tinubu has "charged them (Mohammed and Ajayi) to bring their experience to bear in tackling the security challenges bedeviling the country through enhanced collaboration with sister agencies and in surgical alignment with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA)."
Insecurity
Tinubu thanked the outgoing NIA Director-General Ahmed Abubakar and DSS's outgoing Director-General Yusuf Magaji Bichi for "their services to the nation, while wishing them success in their future endeavours."
The resignations of Abubakar and Bichi come as Nigeria's security apparatus grapples with an increased number of kidnap-for-ransom cases, worsened by a cost of living crisis.
Parts of the country, mainly the north, also remain fragile due to insecurity caused by insurgent groups.
➤Click here to follow our WhatsApp channel for more stories.
