THE Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Alhaji Ahmad Rufa’i, has quit his position.
Already, President Bola Tinubu has accepted his unusual voluntary resignation.
Giving an insight into why he resigned while briefing State House Correspondents, Rufa’i said such decisions were normally driven by family or personal issues, stressing, however, that his is nothing serious, as the President understood his concerns and accepted his voluntary resignation.
“After the briefing today, I tended my resignation, and Mr. President graciously approved and accepted the resignation.
“I discussed with Mr. President. He understood very well and I promise to remain ceased with issues and the security situations of the country,” he explained.
Rufa’i expressed gratitude to Tinubu for the opportunity, encouragement and confidence reposed in him to serve the country, adding: “I thanked him for allowing me to serve Nigeria under his transformational leadership for a period, for an extended period of 15 months, which is very rare, by the way, to serve, to have the opportunity to serve two President at a stretch.
“So, I thanked him very well and I promised to remain professionally dedicated to our country and noble causes.”
The former NIA boss said the opportunity for the President to listen to him, to read briefing notes and pieces of advice had in turn given him the chance to mentor officers and staff for the period he had been the DG.
He added: “This is the seventh year, by the way, to mentor young officers and staff for all the period that I’ve been DG, younger officers to come up, and now we have a lot of many officers who can do this job and do it excellently well.”
Rufa’i was appointed the substantive director general of the Agency by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.
A retired career Foreign Service officer, he was Senior Special Assistant to the President (SSAP) on Foreign Affairs/International Relations.
