President Boko’s Protective Security needs attention
Securing the President, is a serious business. Anticipating threats and generating protective intelligence, is a taxing endeavour. Nothing is left to chance. Failure is never an option. More often than not, failure results in fatal or near-fatal outcome. From previous incidents, the target normally has less than 15 percent chance of surviving an attack.
Donald Trump is pretty lucky to still be here to tell his story, Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan did not make it. In fact, few days after Abe’s assassination, a friend in the Japan security cluster solicited my take on the incident.
I sought refuge in the wisdom of our ancestors when they say, ‘maru a senang tladi, malematsa.’ Meaning, when something rarely happens, complacency creeps in. In Japan, a country known for its strict gun laws and conformist culture, protective security posture, was that any potential attack would not be by a gun. And they could not have been wrong. By the time Abe’s security detail responded, Tetsuya Yamagami, had managed to fire two fatal shots. The rest is history.
The scene around President Duma Boko’s protective security is ugly. The optics speak to operational and tactical ambiguity. It speaks to lack of clarity in roles, composition and command and control. There seems to be no distinct line of operation between President Boko’s friend/ ‘body guard’ and the State-provided protective security team.
This ambiguous security environment, cannot be the order of the day, as it opens up the President to vulnerabilities. President Boko must be told in no uncertain terms that, his State-provided protective security team is crème de la crème in the industry. Presidential security detail is not a ‘Jack and Jill’ affair.
It is for operators who have demonstrable competence to do that which is necessary; when it is necessary to do it. These are highly-trained individuals who push the envelope with unquenchable desire to become one of the country's most lethal warriors and always ready to take a bullet for the President.
The selection and training of this elite order, is rigorous, thorough and brutal. They are expected to perform the most demanding and dangerous missions with deadly expertise. Firearm proficiency and specialised driving skills are necessary, however, if one needs to use these skills, it means opportunities to prevent or avoid an attack were missed.
In this era defined by witches’ brew of hateful rhetoric, where demonising political opponents have become standard fare of societal stovetop, it would be reckless to leave the President’s life, in the hands of his untrained civilian friend.
Protecting the President, is a process rather than an activity. Equally so, threats to the President are a result of meticulous planning on the part of perpetrator/s. They select the target who will produce the greatest results with the least amount of risk. Selection is often a function of perpetrators’ objectives, capabilities coupled with vulnerabilities of the target.
Hence Presidential protective security, demands an unambiguous operational environment with clearly defined command and control. As things stand, it is not clear as to what role is President Boko’s friend in this whole thing. Is he an Agent in Charge, Shift Leader or just an aide?
The Agent in Charge is the engine of the security detail and has overall responsibility for planning, supervision, conducts detail briefing and provides close body coverage to the President. They serve as the link between the President and his security detail.
Shift leader is the tactical commander of the detail and is mostly responsible for operational and overview of the detail. Therefore, Presidential protective security is not merely learning superficial things like escort formations, but having prevention mindset critical to security.
Therefore, proactive measures are more desirable than reactive measures because, reactions are always slower compared to the initial action. Besides, reaction is the result of a failure to be proactive enough to prevent the attack.
Therefore, individuals in the Presidential security detail, have to be very familiar with protective countermeasures. These are proactive steps taken to detect an attack in the planning stage, prevent an attack from occurring, and/or make the attack more difficult.
The sooner the operational environment around President Boko’s security is defined, the better.