Nigeria, Aug. 23 -- When the Presidential Spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, announced that President Bola Tinubu had constituted an eleven-man committee to develop a National Threat Assessment and a Strategic Defence Operations Plan within ninety days, several things struck me about this - with about four months to the next general elections, even before I reached the substance of the directive.

The first was a detail so small that it might ordinarily escape notice. The release identified Major General Adeyinka A Famadewa, the President's Special Adviser on Homeland Security, being tasked to coordinate the committee and provide secretariat support. His name appeared without the designation Rtd. - retired - after his military rank. In routine comm...