One week into the new year, Tuesday, January 9, the air in Abuja was dry, dusty, and clammy. The nation's capital was sluggishly waking into a new rhythm of calm and relative order after the chaos of the Christmas season prompted by a debilitating fuel crisis.
That day, at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency [NIA], in the south east corner of Maitama district of the city, Mohammed Dauda, the then acting director of the agency was getting ready for an official briefing with President Mohammed Buhari. It was his first of such briefing after he was plucked out of the Nigerian embassy in the Republic of Chad October last year, to come serve as acting head of the spy agency tasked with overseeing foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations.
...