Chairman in charge of security during the just concluded All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Primaries, Abdulrahman Bello Dambazua does not need introduction having been a former interior Minister and Chief of Army Staff
He was also, the head of the security committee of the APC campaign organisation during the 2015 presidential election that ushered in President Muhammadu Buhari.
All expectations then was that he would naturally get the appointment as NSA without much hassles but he lost out in the political power play then.
The fact that Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau is a retired Nigerian Army general and politician who served as Chief of Army Staff between 2008 and 2010; and in President Muhammadu Buhari’s Cabinet as Minister of the Interior from 2015 to 2019 has placed him in a vantage position to be so considered in the next dispensation.
He has been tested in security circles and he has proven his mettle as being fit for the job and he can be trusted going by his abtecedents of clean record without blemish.
In 1974 having proceeded to the Nigerian Defence Academy as a member of the 17 Regular Combatant Course. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Infantry Corps of the Nigerian Army in June 1977.
Dambazau served as a military police officer, aide-de-camp to the Chief of Army Staff (1979), commanded military police units and served as a special investigator (1984-1985). Dambazau was registrar of the Nigerian Defence Academy from 1993 to 1999.
He also served as chief instructor, Support Weapon Wing of the Infantry Centre and School from 1999 to 2001 and later as directing staff at the National War College from 2004 to 2006. From 2007 to 2008, he served as general officer commanding (GOC) 2nd Division, Ibadan.
He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 2008 by President Umaru Yar’Adua. Towards the end of the Yar’Adua administration the army was accused of attempts to covertly seize power due to Yar’Adua’s illness.
After Yar’Adua’s death, Dambazau was retired from service by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Following his retirement in 2010, Dambazau went into politics, later joining the All Progressives Congress (APC).
