When Senate Balances Transparency and Security in Screening Service Chiefs

In a rare show of transparency, the Senate on Wednesday held an open screening for President Bola Tinubu’s Service Chief-nominees, allowing Nigerians a rare glimpse into high-level security deliberations. The session signalled a shift towards greater legislative oversight, accountability, and collaboration between civilian authority and the military establishment. Sunday Aborisade reports.

Special Adviser to the President on Senate Matters, Senator Basheer Lado, led the Chief of Defence Staff nominee, Lieutenant General OlufemiOluyede; Chief of Army Staff, Major-General WaheediShaibu; Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Idi Abbas; and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Kennedy Aneke, to the Senate Chamber for screening by the senators.

In a courtroom-like display of accountability mixed with deference to national security, the Nigerian Senate staged an open screening of the President’s nominees for the country’s top military posts. The process began under public glare and concluded behind closed doors with the confirmation of the Chief of Defence Staff and the service chiefs.

The exercise on the Senate floor, fused pointed questions from legislators with lengthy, often personal, testimonials about the nominees’ track records, producing a moment that was equal parts political theatre, institutional reassurance and policy preview.

What began as a ritual of public vetting quickly revealed itself as something more substantive: an opportunity for the legislature to press the military’s incoming leaders on strategy, resources and the human cost of campaigns against terrorism, banditry and maritime criminality.

Senate Leader, OpeyemiBamidele set the tone early by proposing a hybrid format. A brief public exchange followed by a private, interactive session where sensitive national security matters could be examined without jeopardising operations.

The motion, seconded by the Senate’s minority leader, was adopted and framed the day’s choreography: a public stage for transparency and an executive session for candour.

Lieutenant-General Oluyede, newly nominated as Chief of Defence Staff after his recent tenure as Chief of Army Staff, was introduced to the chamber as a “class captain,” in the words of the Senate Leader.

A senior figure who would address colleagues on his prior experience and outline his vision for coordinating the three services. Senate President, GodswillAkpabio invited Oluyede to speak, and the nominee used his few minutes to sketch a pragmatic agenda.

Oluyede’s testimony was rooted in professional modesty and blunt realism. Commissioned in 1992, he traced a career that had taken him through command, staff, instructional and operational postings, including frontline theatres in the North East where the insurgency once held sway.

He reminded the chamber that the military operates under resource constraints that limit its “enabler” capacity, argued for a “whole-of-society” approach to security, and said Nigeria must build its own military-industrial base instead of relying on expensive foreign purchases.

That refrain, which is local industry and smarter use of limited resources, threaded through the answers of nearly every nominee. Across the services, the chiefs-designate pressed the point that procurement alone would not win the peace; training, intelligence, interagency coordination and soldiers’ welfare were equally crucial ingredients.

Senators did not simply listen; they interrogated. Senator Tahir Monguno, a Borno North lawmaker who has personal experience of Boko Haram’s occupation of his hometown, praised Oluyede’s role in reclaiming territory and asked pointedly what immediate actions he would take to counter terrorism. Senator AdamuAliero pressed on troops’ welfare and the proliferation of cross-border fighters known as Lakurawa in the northwest. His is an appeal that underscored the demand for both operational answers and social-political remedies.

Oluyede’s replies were reflective of frontline lessons: intelligence-led operations, improved training for special forces, better night-fighting capability and a commitment to troops’ welfare through housing, healthcare and timely stipend payments.

He also endorsed empowering the police to handle internal law-and-order duties more robustly, allowing the military to focus on external defence and counter-insurgency. Importantly, on deradicalisation, he acknowledged programmes like Operation Safe Corridor and highlighted the need for integration pathways. These he identified as vocational training, community engagement and identity documentation, to prevent recidivism.

Chief of Army Staff nominee, Major-General WaheediShaibu, echoed similar priorities when he faced the senators. He hinged on a multi-faceted approach to insurgency and banditry. He harps on the need to dominate all terrains with special operations, leverage technology, and synchronise intelligence across agencies. He placed troop morale at the centre of fighting capability and promised holistic welfare interventions, from housing to education and healthcare. It is a pledge that senators welcomed as essential to sustaining operations in harsh theatres.

The Navy and Air Force nominees brought maritime and aerial concerns into sharper relief. Rear Admiral Idi Abbas, nominated as Chief of Naval Staff, emphasised technology. He particularly emphasized drones, as a force multiplier against piracy, oil theft and illegal bunkering in hard-to-reach coastal and inland-waterway locations. He rejected the creation of a separate coast guard as a duplication, arguing instead that resources would be better spent strengthening the Navy’s platform availability and operational reach.

For the Air Force, Air Vice-Marshall Sunday Kennedy Aneke offered both a defence of existing assets and a forward-looking embrace of unmanned systems. In response to the Bauchi Central representative, Senator Abdul Ningi’s question about the whereabouts and utility of the Super Tucano attack aircraft, which are costly platforms that have been used in the northeast and northwest theatres,  Aneke defended their operational deployment, noting that much of air operations cannot be publicly showcased without compromising effectiveness. He warned senators that air power is expensive, not just in acquisition but in sustainment and ordnance, and urged prudence and sustained funding to maximise the value of every naira spent.

Beyond strategy and hardware, the senators pressed on issues of integration, rehabilitation and community reconciliation. Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo from Gombe asked how deradicalised elements could be reintegrated into communities with dignity.

It is a line of questioning that brought to the fore the social dimension of security policy. Rear Admiral Abbas warned about the moral burden of reintegrating perpetrators into communities; he argued for consultation with victims’ families as part of any reinsertion process.

What emerged from the public session was an unmistakable theme: the new leadership sees modern warfare in Nigeria as hybrid. That is, kinetic operations interlaced with cyber, information operations, economic and social dimensions. The nominees uniformly pledged to “fight smart,” to sharpen intelligence fusion, to exploit unmanned systems and to work across agencies and with communities. They also asked, candidly, for the resources and the political will to do so.

Senate President, GodswillAkpabio moderated the exchanges with a mix of levity and gravity, reminding colleagues that an interactive, private session would follow to tackle the deeper security questions.

That move, played out to be a brief public accountability followed by secret deliberation and it signals a balancing act. Akpabio’s approach exposed two things. That the legislature must inform the public and hold appointees to account, but it also must allow security planners the space to deliberate on intelligence and operations without broadcasting sensitive details.

At stake in the confirmation was not only competence but public confidence. Senators from diverse geo-political zones offered unambiguous endorsements of the nominees. Their submissions exposed personal testimonies that underscored the deep, often local, ties between commanders and the communities they have served.

For instance, Senator IssaJibrin, speaking about Major-General Shaibu, said he had known the officer for three decades and vouched for his dedication. Senator Monguno’s testimony about Oluyede’s role in Monguno provided a live validation of operational capability.

By the end of the day, after the closed-door session, the Senate moved to confirm the nominees. It was a swift conclusion that nevertheless followed a visible exercise of legislative oversight. The day’s format and the nature of the exchanges offer several political takeaways.

First, the Senate has signalled an appetite for robust oversight that is nonetheless mindful of operational security. Public theatre is useful for accountability; closed-door sessions are necessary for candour. Second, there is bipartisan agreement across the chamber that security policy must be integrated: military operations must be accompanied by policing reform, economic reintegration and community-level reconciliation. Third, the incoming chiefs have set expectations for technology, for domestic production of defence equipment, and for improved soldier welfare. These will now be tested against budgetary realities.

The political challenge ahead will be converting these campaign-stage assurances into concrete policies and funding commitments. Senators can press for budgets that reflect the chiefs’ ambitions, but the executive and ministries must match words with procurement, logistics and reforms within the police and civil institutions.

Finally, the day offered a reminder of what is often true in fragile security environments: military success is as much about people as it is about platforms. The nominees repeatedly returned to the human equation, which is soldiers’ welfare, community trust, rehabilitating repentant fighters. They argued that it was the foundation on which technical and tactical advantages rest.

If the new leadership can turn strategy into sustained, community-anchored action, the Senate’s public vetting may prove a useful prelude to an operational reset.

As the appointees depart the legislative chamber and return to barracks and commands, the real work begins: translating promises into plans, and plans into measurable improvements on the ground.

For the Senate and the public that watched the exercise, confirmation was not the finish line but a formal beginning. It is a line of accountability that the legislature will now be expected to follow through, in committee hearings, budgetary scrutiny and, where necessary, further oversight.

What Nigerians will now watch for are the early signs: a measurable uptick in intelligence-led operations that reduce attacks; concrete investments in soldiers’ housing and healthcare; clearer police reforms that allow the military to focus on military tasks; and, importantly, a visible effort to develop local defence capabilities that Oluyede and others insist are essential for long-term sovereignty.

The new chiefs were given the mandate; the Senate has signalled its support. Now, the nation awaits the results.