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Tag: generals

  • ‘Generals worthy of applause, not denigration’

    ‘Generals worthy of applause, not denigration’

    The Rector of the Nigerian-Korean Friendship Institute of Vocational and Advanced Technology, Dr. Toyin Oluwatoyin, has said military generals should be applauded and encouraged to contain the complex guerrilla warfare plaguing the country.

    Oluwatoyin was reacting to calls for stripping military generals of their ranks as a result of their inability to quell the ravaging insurgency in record time.

    Some Nigerians on X had made snide remarks against Generals of the Armed Forces, describing them as businessmen and alleging that they were responsible for the lingering terrorism and insurgency assailing the nation.

    The denigration of the generals followed claims by a deserted Lance Corporal of the Nigerian Army who became a social media sensation through his bogus allegations against Generals and other senior officers of the army.

    In several videos, the soldier accused some generals of aiding/sponsoring terrorism, corruption, sabotage, and having sympathy towards criminal herders.

    These allegations have been dismissed by the Army, which insisted the Lance Corporal was a coward who went AWOL, adding that he would be dealt with in line with military disciplinary procedures whenever he was caught.

    But Oluwatoyin told reporters in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, that Nigerians need to give maximum support to the Armed Forces to enable them to combat insurgency.

    Read Also: CDS Musa sets high bar for newly-decorated Major Generals

    According to him, the nation’s Generals have all the credentials and training needed to accomplish the task.

    The rector stressed that what is needed is the people’s support and political will to enable the military to function optimally.

    Oluwatoyin described the war against insurgency as asymmetric and required all hands on deck, reminding critics that becoming a General in the Army is a journey defined by strict military codes, rigorous evaluation, field experience, professional courses, and merit-based promotions.

    “No one is promoted into the rank of a General without meeting an array of highly disciplined standards enforced by the Nigerian Armed Forces. The rank is earned through decades of resilience, operational command, and integrity under pressure,” he said.

  • Army generals escape death in Borno

    Two Army generals at the weekend escaped death after an encounter with hidden Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) at Banki Junction, Pulka road in Borno State.

    The Chief of Administration, Maj.-Gen. I.M Alkali, and the Acting General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Brig.-Gen. Victor Ezugwu, were visiting troops of 26 Task Force Brigade on Operation Lafiya Dole engaged in Operation DEEP PUSH. Their convoy cleared four IEDs buried by suspected Boko Haram terrorists on their way to Gwoza from Bama.

    The Explosive Ordinance Device team however, detected the IEDs; extracted and detonated them.

    Troops of 1 Division on Operation Harbin Kunama in Kaduna State have recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition in Kaduna South.

    The arms were discovered during a cordon and search at Gwaska, Dangoma, Angwan Far and Bakin Kogi general area.

    Seventy three Dane Guns, four rifles, one machine gun and pistol, all locally-made, were recovered.

    Others are 260 cartridges, 14 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, 63 rounds of 9mm ammunition, locally-made small machine gun magazine, a pair of old military boots and some improvised ammunition and pyrotechnics hidden in dug out pits.

    The Director of Army Public Relations, Brig.-Gen. Sani Usman, in a statement, said efforts were on to track owners of the ammunition.

    “While efforts are on to track owners of the arms and ammunition, it is imperative to say the people have been very supportive, which led to the discovery,” he said.

    Gen. Usman added that similar operations are ongoing in Sector 1 which covers Kano State, as troops, in conjunction with other security agencies, are carrying out operations in suspected bandits’ camps in Falgore forest.

  • Bamaiyi and perfidious Generals

    General Ishaya  Bamaiyi’s ‘Vindication of a General’ which came out recently once again calls attention to the tragedy of our military misadventure into politics since 1966.  It is the story of betrayal of our nation by the custodians of our constitution. In character with earlier contributions from other Generals, it was first tales of self-conceit. Bamaiyi told us he was feared by General Abdulsalami Abubakar and some of his people who thought he could overthrow Gen. Obasanjo’s government”. He also wants us to know he was different from other Abacha Generals as he lived above board. “They started by checking army accounts to see if I had stolen money. They spoke to the Director of Army Finance and Accounts, DAFA, Maj. Gen. Omosebi who told them he had never worked with an officer who believed in accountability like I did” , he stated with an apparent satisfaction. The book is also about the tales of conspiracy and intrigue that characterized the Babangida and Abacha years and his personal wars with his fellow treacherous Babangida and Abacha Generals in an era when the military according to Saliu Ibrahim, a former Chief of Army Staff, had become “an army of anything is possible”. And finally, Bamaiyi’s tales also confirm General Gowon’s thesis that the military lost its innocence with its involvement in politics and Professor Omo Omoruyi, Babangida’s confidant and the brain behind his derailed transition programme, that the “nature of the armed forces especially after the second coup, has been dog eat dog” and that “Nigeria can never be in peace until the political generals and political soldiers leave the scene”.

    Bamaiyi narrative is all about war of succession. It is either about the marginalization of Abacha according to Col Kangiwa Umar which Omo Omoruyi, the Aso rock professor of military political intrigue told us was the derailment of a pact between Babangida who was to spend five years and hand over to Abacha, or the balance of terror among warlords angling to take over from Babangida as military president or from Abacha as head of the military if Abiola succeeded in retrieving his pan-Nigeria mandate. These were the preoccupations of our generals while they unleashed terror on critics murdering Pa Rewane inside his house, Kudirat Abiola on the street of Lagos in broad day light, Tosin Onagoruwa close to his father’s house and many others.

    First Bamayi started from the area that touches him most. He had hoped to take over the military under MKO Abiola’s presidency. Abiola’s sudden death put an end to that dream. Bamayi now wants Nigerians to hold Abdulsalami, the then head of state responsible for Abiola’s death. Bamaiyi is right. The problem however is how to convince Nigerians he is different from his other perfidious generals who are driven only by self-interest. His case is not helped by the claim of Gabriel Ajayi, who was accused of co-plotting the 1995 coup. While describing Bamaiyi as a liar, he dismissed his tales as a comedy of errors. “How could he claim that Gen. Abdulsalami should be held accountable for Abiola’s death when he was among those who tortured Abiola before his death?” he had asked.

    Next, Bamaiyi has an axe to grind with ex-President Obasanjo under whose administration he was detained for eight years. He maintains Obasnajo was part of the phantom Diya 1995 coup even though Bello Fadile who was said to have privately and publicly apologised to Obasanjo, claiming he was tortured to frame him’ has exonerated Obasanjo upon release from prison. Bamaiyi went on to insist his eight years’ incarceration stemmed from his opposition to Obasanjo who was imposed on the country in 1999 as president by Generals Theophilus Danjuma, Babangida, Aliyu Gusau and Abdulsalami Abubakar. He says Obasanjo wanted to assassinate him because of his principled opposition to his candidacy. Reaction, an incensed Obasanjo asked: “That I wanted to kill him? What of the people he killed? My government did not plot to kill him,” adding “My government asked him to answer to those that were alleged to have been killed by him and that is legitimate”.

    Of course, Bamaiyi has nothing but disdain for Oladipo Diya who was one of the warlords under Babangida. He has continued to insist he was behind the phantom coup and that General Malu was right to have condemned him to death. Diya has not denied. In fact he had told Abacha ‘if the army has decided to remove you and I didn’t join them, I could be a target’. Abacha, then went on to remind Diya how ‘he had been instrumental several times in the past in saving Diya’s career and how he went ahead to make him the CDS” {Tell. Jan.26. 1998). That Diya and his other generals did not realize that they were being set up by Bamaiyi speaks volumes about the worth of generals under Abacha who according to some accounts was never reckoned to go beyond a colonel in the military.

    Abdulkarim Adisa , a groveling  General, who once swore  to die for General Babangida, his benefactor and who was also roped into the  phantom coup is not alife lo react to Bamaiyi’s tales. For General Olanrewaju however, Bamaiyi was trying to twist history. Bamaiyi’s book he says,  “can open the eyes of all Nigerians to see the footprints of an ambitious soldier that Bamaiyi epitomises as detailed in every account of the power play, which appears unfavourable to him, but favourable to both General Abdulsalami Abubakar as Abacha’s successor and General Olusegun Obasanjo as 1999 civilian president. He lost out in the power play.”

    Bamayi also had problem from the home front. His brother, he says wanted him jailed while in detention. The Emir of Zuru he helped installed, he says wrote Maccido and Gusau to have his assets investigated.  Bamaiyi seems to have problem with everyone. While he blames Obasanjo for his detention, he also acknowledges that when he visited Gusau in his office, he was told “an investigation was on and that CP Danbaba said he (Bamaiyi) had authorized him to issue a weapon with which Mr. Alex Ibru was shot”. The question is whether it was possible for CP Danbaba who was alleged to anchor the activities of the Abacha killing squad in Lagos to forget the identities of members of his group.

    It is not enough for Generals who owned their epaulets by the grace of professional coup plotters or as Omo Omoruyi puts it, the duo that “have been engaged in this coup thing all their life” to deny and denounce Bamaiyi’s tales. The travails of our nation started with pact between the two professional coup makers on August 5, 1986. They did not only destroy the military as Gowon has observed, they also left behind baleful legacies. Structural Adjustment Programme that we were told would last for 18 months went on for five years. We today reap its effects in form of imported labour of other societies while our own children roam the streets in search of jobs. The Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) like Better Life for Rural Women with its alleged N400m funding from Central Bank collapsed with Babangida. His synthetic two parties we were told would allow the masses at the grassroots to mobilise the urban elite they look up to for direction collapsed on their head. The N5b spent on building headquarters for the two synthetic parties was a waste just like the N40b frittered away on a transition programme that was designed to fail. The czar of the Centre for Democratic Studies ( CDS) that was to breed new breed politicians according to Omo Omoruyi, traded away Babangida’s interim contraption ‘on a platter of naira’ while the new breeds produced by the school graduated into national politics where they breed nothing but corruption. The perfidious Generals for the above reasons need to tell their own stories.

  • ‘Trial’ of the Generals

    Nearly nine months into his administration, President Muhammadu Buhari appears set to restore military pride in the aftermath of decline under his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

    Concerned by the near-fall of a once mighty Nigerian military upon assumption of office, the president vowed to reverse the trend of having to engage South African mercenaries to combat Boko Haram fundamentalists, while the infantry retreated from the rampaging insurgents.

    Reduced at the time to the unconventional method of shopping for arms and ammunition in cash via government officials, the military top brass under Jonathan blamed the situation on poor funding, lily-livered soldiers and the United States of America’s reluctance to supply needed weapons.

    But evidence suggested otherwise: the military simultaneously waged two wars – one against terrorists and the other against public perception of a corrupt force.

    While the blame game lasted, the implacable insurgents took territory after territory until 21 of 27 local government areas of a Northeast state allegedly could not be accounted for by the government. In most of the places annexed, the terrorists hoisted their flag and imposed their brand of Islamic rule to signify a ‘conquered’ enclave – to the consternation of the world.

    But Buhari – a distinguished Army General and former head of state – was always unlikely to toe his predecessor’s path. For him, labelling rebellious troops ‘cowards’ and sentencing them to death by court martial as Generals did under Dr Jonathan would not suffice.

    Reprieve has since come the way of many of the affected soldiers, who, it emerged, often confronted rugged, well-armed terrorists with soft weapons and delicate morale. Buhari chose to tackle an issue that might have been considered untouchable under Jonathan: probe of sullied Generals.

    The president ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh, 59, and former Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Adesola Nunayon Amosu, 57, for prominent roles in the purchase of military hardware during their tenures.

    Twenty-one firms as well as 15 other retired and serving military officers would also be captured in scrutiny of the arms procurement scam.

    The president issued the directive mid-January following a report submitted by the panel he set up to audit arms and equipment procured between 2007 and 2015. The committee had confirmed that Nigeria spent about $2 billion and another N29 billion on the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) procurement alone during the period in review.

    As related by the Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, EFCC would probe the 21 companies and their directors for alleged fundamental breaches associated with the procurements by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Air Force.

    The president directed the anti-graft commission to investigate the roles of officers, individuals, companies and their directors thought to have fundamentally breached standard procedures associated with the procurements.

    Mallam Shehu said that offences outlined by the investigating panel against the individuals and companies included “non-specification of procurement costs, absence of contract agreements, award of contracts beyond authorised thresholds, transfer of public funds for unidentified purposes and general non-adherence to provisions of the Public Procurement Act.”

     

    Besides, “the procurement processes were arbitrarily carried out and generally characterised by irregularities and fraud.

    In many cases, the procured items failed to meet the purposes they were procured for, especially the counter insurgency efforts in the Northeast.”

    The charges include helicopters acquired without rotor blades and upgrade accessories, radar systems without vital components and, specifically under Amosu, alpha jets purchased against recommendation. All were delivered in hazy circumstances and at heart-stopping rates.

    Badeh is being questioned on contracts awarded under his leadership amounting to $930.5 million. The money is said to be part of the $2.1 billion meant for the purchase of arms, which was under the control of the ONSA, then occupied by Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.).

    Dasuki, Badeh, Amosu and other retired military chiefs being interrogated for alleged corruption are likely to face separate charges, it emerged.

    While allegations swirled around the prime suspects, however, Jonathan employed a ludicrous defence of his record as Commander-in-Chief.

    Weapons ordered in his time aided his successor’s more successful campaign against Boko Haram, claimed the former president. Far from the truth, noted government officials, soldiers brandished outdated weapons and ‘bullion vans’ were deployed as armoured tanks.

    Thus emanated, in part, reason for the soldiers’ display of ‘cowardice’ that was denounced by Dasuki abroad, while the former CDS courted condemnation with a declaration that the military under his command was poorly equipped.

    EFCC, in the meantime, subjected Badeh to about 18 hours of interrogation since his detention. Based on statements by the ex-CDS and AVM Amosu (rtd.), EFCC also interrogated six serving Air Vice-Marshals, while security operatives are on alert to prevent individuals under investigation from fleeing the country.

    Amosu and some top Air Force personnel were arrested on January 28 to answer questions in connection with the arms probe.

    Probably connected with the scam, EFCC reportedly sealed the Abuja mansion of the former CDS. The commission also grilled Badeh’s son.

    As part of its investigations, the anti-graft agency is checking bank accounts that belong to some of the military chiefs and extending the search for illicit property to the United Arab Emirates and the United States with the cooperation of the countries.

    Global human rights organisation, Amnesty International (AI), called for the immediate investigation of top past and present military commanders for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Nigeria military in the fight against Boko Haram. Military officers, including some under investigation for the weapons scam, are believed to be involved.

    The former Chief of Air Staff’s wife, Lara Amosu, was also detained overnight and released by the anti-corruption agency over allegations that some of the misappropriated arms fund was traced to her through her husband. Investigations conducted linked some of the controversial money with her accounts.

    About N3 billion was traced to Mrs Amosu’s accounts, while some assets acquired by the former service chief appeared in her name and some others in her company’s name, said an EFCC source. The anti-graft agency also retrieved $1 million cash from a ‘soak away’ pit after operatives carried out a search on Amosu’s residence in Badagry, Lagos.

    While the money is kept by EFCC as evidence towards the trial of the allegedly corrupt officials, a picture of the stash of dollars circulating on the Internet may not be related to the case. The photo reportedly shows a part of $600 million that belonged to Pablo “El Patron” Escobar, the most famous drug dealer in the history of Colombia, South America.

    Regardless of the error in the public assessment of the matter, the facts remain: the Generals cited in the arms scandal are under fire for perceived indiscretion. Against compelling evidence, they will have to prove in court that they are not guilty of misdemeanour worse than mutiny – accounting for more than a fair share of the bloodshed that has attended the six-year insurgency.

  • Not the people’s Generals

    Nations do not joke with the funding of their armed forces. This is why in most cases, Defence gets a huge chunk of the budget. By setting aside a large sum for Defence, a country is preparing its military for any eventuality. A nation’s military is not built in a day, it is developed over time and it takes successive administrations to work at it. A nation that waits until it has to fight a war before it builds its military is only courting disaster.

    The military plays a crucial role in the life of a nation. It is the bulwark against external aggression. So, for the military to defend the territorial integrity of a nation, it must be well equipped and its personnel well catered for. When soldiers are well kitted they too will give of their best. To whom much is given, the saying goes, much is expected. But where soldiers are not motivated, they cannot be expected to perform wonders. They will flee from the enemy as we have been seeing some of our soldiers do in the fight against Boko Haram.

    A soldier is expected to go to war with arms and ammunition and in these days of technological advancement, he must also be schooled in the use of high-tech weapons and other state-of-the-art war toys. No nation sends its soldiers to war with biscuits in their hands because the battlefield is not for wining and dining; it is for fighting. During the Civil War, our soldiers discharged themselves well, fighting to keep Nigeria one, but in the last three years, these same soldiers were until recently finding it difficult to get their bearings right in the encounter with Boko Haram.

    Why will a well trained army like ours run away from a ragtag bunch of  Boko Haram elements? Why? We now know why. The funds for the acquisition of arms and ammunition and other war equipment were spent on frivolities by those charged with securing us. The Dasukigate has opened our eyes to what happened to the $2.1 billion meant for the purchase of war planes and other weapons to fight Boko Haram. Instead of spending the money on what it was meant for, the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki, resorted to sharing it out among politicians and friends of the immediate past administration.

    The poor soldiers sent to fight Boko Haram were not given anything to defend themselves. When they retreated from battle, they were tagged cowards and court martialled. Some were sentenced to death; some were jailed and some were dismissed. The generals who sent them to battle without weapons derided them. Immediate past Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, who along with 19 others, are to be probed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for their alleged roles in arm purchases for the Air Force between 2007 and last year, once said that the soldier’s oath to defend his country is sacrosanct. A soldier did not take oath to run away from battle, he said. Yes, that is true to a certain extent because there is a condition precedent to be fulfilled for a soldier to lay down his life for his country. Unfortunately, Badeh did not address this condition, which is  the authority must provide the soldier the instruments of war to be able to defend himself and country

    Did Badeh as CDS ensure that these soldiers were well armed before sending them to battle? If he did, he would have been justified in setting up the court martial, which sent some soldiers to death for alleged mutiny. But if he did not, he should be made to face the consequences of his action – the killing of innocent souls by sending them to battle without equipping them. A general is expected to look out for his men and not to hasten their death by ill-preparing them for battle. As President Muhammadu Buhari said on the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) last December 28, the soldiers were provoked to mutiny by the actions of their bosses, who were only interested in catering for themselves.

    ‘’The government at that time sent the soldiers to the battlefield without arms and ammunition to prosecute the war. That was what led some of them to mutiny. They were arrested and detained because of this’’, the president said. Who is guilty between the soldiers and the generals? It is criminal to send a soldier to war without giving him weapons. It is heinous for a general to now turn around to punish the soldier for the  failure to do his own job. It is the generals’ job to provide their soldiers with guns. Why didn’t they do so? What is their defence to this criminal conspiracy to deliberately waste the lives of these young men?

    This is why the probe of Badeh, Air Marshal M.D. Umar, Air Marshal A.N. Amosu, Maj Gen E.R. Chioba, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) I.A. Balogun, AVM A.G. Tsakr, AVM A.G. Idowu, AVM A.M. Mamu, AVM O.T. Oguntoyinbo, AVM T. Omenyi, AVM J.B. Adigun, AVM R.A. Ojuawo, AVM J.A. Kayode-Beckley, Air Commodore S.A. Yushau, Air Commodore A.O. Ogunjobi, Air Commodore G.M.D. Gwani, Air Commodore S.O. Makinde, Air Commodore A.Y. Lassa, Col N. Ashinze and Lt Col M.S. Dasuki, is welcomed. Let them face the EFCC panel and tell the world what they did with the billions of naira that passed through their hands for the purchase of military aircraft. Did they spend the money judiciously?

    We want to know what happened because that is the only way to prevent a recurrence and ensure that in future the military lacks nothing to confront internal and external aggression. If Boko Haram had been an external aggressor, where will we be today as a country? In his valedictory speech last July 30, Badeh, among other remarks, said : ‘’Over the years, the military was neglected and under-equipped to ensure the survival of certain regimes…’’ But when he had the opportunity to change things as CDS, what did he do?  Nigerians are wiser than that. He cannot pull the wool over our eyes.

  • Army puts Generals, 20 others on trial

    Army puts Generals, 20 others on trial

    AFTER three postponements, the Army has started the court martial of two generals and 20 other officers who allegedly refused to fight Boko Haram.

    Security was tight yesterday at the Officers Mess, 9th Brigade Headquarters, Ikeja Cantonment, venue of the court martial.

    Reporters, who stormed the venue upon getting information about the trial, were not allowed anywhere close to the area.

    The trial started in the morning and as at the time of filing this report (4:30p.m.), proceedings were still ongoing.

    The officers include two Brigadier-Generals, J.O. Komolafe and Ramsome-Kuti; 14 Colonels- A. Laguda, V. Ebhaleme, V.O. Ita, I.B. Maina, I.A Aboi, I.M Kabir, M.H. Abubakar, A. A. Egbejule, N.N. Orok, C.A. Magaji, A.O. Agwu, A.J.S. Gulani, O.O. Obolo and A.M. Adetuyi; one Major – M.M. Idris; five Captains – M. Adamu, O. A. Adenaike, M. Gidado, M.M. Clark and S. Raymond; as well as a Second Lieutenant, S.O. Olowa.

    They are the third batch of Army officers who have been accused of alleged treasonable offences (mutiny).

    The other two batches were condemned to death by firing squad by an Abuja Court Martial.

    It was learnt that Femi Falana (SAN), Tayo Oyetibo (SAN) and another senior lawyer were among the defence team for the officers.

    Falana, who left in the morning after realising his clients, Brigadier-Generals Ramsome-Kuti and Komolafe, were not brought before the panel yesterday, confirmed the court martial has started.

    He said the military authority had assured him that they would inform him when his clients’ case would come up.

    Asked to comment on the charges against the officers, Falana declined on the grounds that his client’s trial has not commenced.

    He said: “The military authority has told the world that they have just taken delivery of military equipment. I feel there is no need to put them on trial. That is why we congratulated them in the successes so far recorded.

    “This confirmed that as at the time they were arrested, there was no weapon to fight. But now that they have weapons, they should release the boys to go and join others to fight.”

    Yesterday’s court martial was the first time senior army officer would be put on trial for such offences as mutiny in the war against terrorists in Northeast.

    Army had in December condemned 54 soldiers after finding them guilty for conspiracy to commit mutiny and mutiny for disobeying direct order from superior officers to go to the battle front.

    The soldiers, however, said they only asked for support equipment before embarking on the operation.

    Their conviction is currently on appeal by their counsel, Falana.

     

  • Boko Haram: Army commences trial of Generals, others

    Boko Haram: Army commences trial of Generals, others

    After three postponements, the Nigerian Army Monday commenced the court Martial of two generals and 20 other officers who allegedly deserted their duties in the ongoing war against extremist sect, Boko Haram.

    The court martial, which was held at the Officers Mess, 9th Brigade Headquarters, Ikeja Cantonment, was done amid tight security.

    Reporters who arrived the venue upon getting information about the trial were not allowed anywhere close to the area as personnel of the Operation MESA were stationed from the entrance.

    The trial commenced Monday morning and as at the time of filing this report (4:30pm), proceedings were still ongoing.

    The officers include two Brigadier-Generals, J.O. Komolafe and Ramsome-Kuti; 14 Colonels- A. Laguda, V. Ebhaleme, V.O. Ita, I.B. Maina, I.A Aboi, I.M Kabir, M.H. Abubakar, A. A. Egbejule, N.N. Orok, C.A. Magaji, A.O. Agwu, A.J.S. Gulani, O.O. Obolo and A.M. Adetuyi; one Major-M.M. Idris; five Captains-M. Adamu, O. A. Adenaike, M. Gidado, M.M. Clark and S. Raymond; as well as a Second Lieutenant, S.O. Olowa.

    They are the third batch of Army personnel who have been fingered for alleged treasonable offences (mutiny), with the other two batches condemned to death by firing squad by an Abuja Court Martial.

    It was learnt that Femi Falana (SAN), Tayo Oyetibo (SAN) and another senior lawyer were among the defence team for the officers.

    Falana who left in the morning after realising his client Brigadier-Generals Ramsome-Kuti and Komolafe were not brought before the panel Monday, confirmed that the court Martial has commenced.

    He said that the military authority had assured him that they would inform him when his client’s case would come up.

    Asked to comment on the charges against the officers, Falana declined on the grounds that his client’s trial has not commenced.

    He said: “The military authority has told the world that they have just taken delivery of military equipment, I feel there is no need to put them on trial that is why we congratulated them in the successes so far recorded.

    “This confirmed that as at the time they were arrested there was no weapon to fight, but now that they have weapons, they should release the boys to go and join others to fight.”

    This is the first time senior army officer would be put on trial for such offences as mutiny in the northeastern war against terrorists.

    Army had in December condemned 54 soldiers after finding them guilty on conspiracy to commit mutiny and mutiny for disobeying direct order from superior officers to go to the battle front.

    The soldiers however said they only asked for support equipment before embarking on the operation.

    Their conviction is currently on appeal by their counsel Femi Falana.

  • Afenifere: Generals without troops

    Afenifere: Generals without troops

    There are good men in every land; the tree of life has many branches and roots; let not the topmost twig presume to think that it alone has sprung from the mother earth; we did not choose our races by ourselves; Jews, Muslims, Christians, all alike are men; let me hope I have found in you a man.”

    Jonathan Von Goethe

     

    Proverbial Adage

    Leaders are not those who ascribe leadership to themselves by whim and thus become unworthy impostors. Real leaders are those who are acknowledged as leaders by their followers and are willingly assisted by those followers to pilot the affairs of the people.

    A Yoruba proverbial adage which informs that “all sorts of knives surface on a day of an elephant’s death” may not be far from the truth after all. Politics in Nigeria today is like that proverbial elephant.

    It throws up all hidden agenda and exposes all clandestine moves by some dubious characters in the society. In other words, the satanic cloak under which some obscure, chameleonic politicians masquerade in a bid to benefit from Nigeria’s new political paradigm called ‘stomach infrastructure’ seems to have become an implacable calamity that devours the vestiges of peace in the land.

    The Yoruba Muslims of the current generation who were never privileged to witness the political and religious trauma to which their parents were subjected in the 1950s and 1960s in the old Western region, when Yoruba Muslims had not fully imbibed Western literacy, can still feel the impact of that trauma today.  They may however take advantage of today’s atrocious spectacle to view the religious cloaks of those years and use it to unmask some dubious characters who then masqueraded under those evil cloaks.

     

    The sun and the brook

    An Arab poet once observed thus in one of his poetic stanza: “…..It does not bother the sun that some blind people deny the existence of its rays just as it does not bother a brook that some herd boycotts its water”.

    If the above quotation is thoroughly analysed by men of literary prowess it would be discovered that the blind men who deny the existence of the sun rays are the ones to lose out in their animosity.

    Their refusal to recognise the rays of the sun can neither diminish the grandeur of the sun nor enable their blind eyes to see. Yet, they will suffer severely under the burning heat of the sun rays.

    Likewise, boycotting the brook water by some herd can never affect the brook in any way. If anything, it is the herd which boycotts the brook water that may end up dying of thirst.

     

    The parable of owl

    The similitude of the above analogy is like that of a self-adulated group in Yoruba land called AFENIFERE which, like an owl, cannot freely interact with credible, well-meaning Yoruba men and women on issues of substance. Like the owl which, by its own design, is essentially a bird of the night that cannot comfortably associate with other birds in the day, AFENIFERE is now a pariah group that can only arrogate leadership to itself on the pages of some pariah newspapers in its search for relevance. If we may ask, at what forum did the well known and globally acknowledged Yoruba leaders of thought appoint the so-called AFENIFERE to serve as the megaphone of the Yoruba tribe?

    Even if the group was ever appointed the megaphone for the Yoruba tribe does that confer leadership on it? When did Yoruba leadership become so cheap that any pariah group can rise from an obscure corner of the region to start claiming it on the pages of newspapers? The theory of stomach infrastructure which just crept into Nigeria’s political thesaurus has surely brought a new dimension to the cultural value in Yoruba land.

    For people who know the owl very wellwith its queer operation in the forest, the antics of the AFENIFERE political demagogues cannot be strange. Here are people of yesteryear who had spent their time and the time of their children as well as that of their grandchildren and are yet seeking to spend the time of their great grand children to their own benefits alone. At a time when vision rather than improvidence is the order of the day it is strange that this group’s deleterious political activities are still geared towards the search for any relevance even where relevance for them has become impossible.

    But what else can be said of a group that once claimed to be progressive but now turns round to become ultra-conservative?

     

    Living in the dark

    With some dead woods and half baked elements in Yoruba land as its members today, AFENIFERE is currently arrogating Yoruba leadership to itself and claiming to be the megaphone of that Nigerian major tribe as it once did unchallenged in the remote past. That group which still lives in the dark days of the primitive past seems to be too visionless to coin a contemporary name for itself other than that of its progenitor in the early 1950s. Thus, in its failure to keep pace with the modern reality, the group still believes that the situation of the 1950s is the same as that of today an indication that it has long outlived its time and its relevance.

    The group (AFENIFERE) was recently reported in the media to have told a particular presidential candidate in the forth coming general elections that Yoruba people had decided to give him their block voting. That report has not been denied. And that was not the first time the group has fraudulently made unsolicited claims on behalf of Yoruba people.

    Sometime early last year, the same group hijacked the Southwest presidential nomination to the national confab and put 15 of its members (all non-Muslims) on the list of that nomination to the exclusion of the entire Muslims in the region whose numerical strength cannot be underestimated.

    When, in reaction to that clandestine act, the Muslim Ummah of the South West of Nigeria (MUSWEN) wrote a memo to the National confab to put the records straight, the group quickly but deceptively wrote a letter to MUSWEN inviting the latter to a meeting of mutual understanding. But the meeting never came up as AFENIFERE began to play its usual chameleonic hide and seek game that is still on course till this moment.

     

    Evidence of ignorance

    What these people do not and may not know in a foreseeable future is that with the coming of Internet and social media the definition of literacy has tremendously changed from mere reading and writing of tales and fables to that of modern browsing and messaging through the Internet in the 21st century. And without such standard of literacy this time around any person who still claims to be literate is half-dead. However, it takes only the seeing to recognise the light and make the best use of it. Therefore, it cannot be a surprise that the members of this group are still snoring in their primordial bed while expecting others to be off like them.

    Even in Yoruba land where AFENIFERE is supposed to be based the group merely operates in a certain obscure corner of the region only to randomly roar out to impress its ignorant backers in Abuja through the pages of some obscure newspapers. But since the dance of a dragon fly on the surface of stream water can only be in mandatory rhythm of the drum beat beneath the water no one should expect the owl to come home to roost.

    Judged by the public utterances and conducts of its members, AFENIFERE has become a ridiculous paradox between yesterday’s fictitious dream and today’s disappointing nightmare. Had the members of the so-called AFENIFERE group known how much they have become a laughable stock in Nigeria today they would have probably reclined into their obsolete cloak and stopped behaving like the owl among birds.

    But how can they know when they can hardly realise that the trend of literacy which once gave them the opportunity to be relevant in the region has since changed when most of them cannot put their fingers on the computer let alone prying into the modern world of literacy through the Internet.

     

    Yoruba Muslims in the 21st Century

    To this so-called AFENIFERE group, the usefulness of the Muslim multitudes in the Western region does not transcend voting and clapping for the region’s ‘lotus eaters’ which it (AFENIFERE) typifies. Despite the glaring difference between the Muslims of the 1950s who were treated like slaves and those of the 21st century who are highly sophisticated in essence and substance the groups still pretends not to take note hence the ignorant wish to maintain the anachronistic status quo.

     

    Warning

    Let it be known to this self-elevated group that the antics of the yore with which the so-called AFENIFERE outsmarted and relegated Yoruba Muslims to the background in the past have gone with the irritating particles of the past. And any further attempt to want to continue such primitive antics to the detriment of Yoruba Muslims will be adequately resisted in letters and in law. We have paid our due in terms of tolerance, patience and endurance. Elasticity has its limit.

    No group of sheer opportunists that still ignorantly believes in the deception gimmicks of the past will be allowed anymore to ride roughshod over the Muslims of the Southwest. Enough is enough. Though the unofficial policy of ‘stomach infrastructure’ of this era seems to have taken away the once valued wisdom associated with old age there can be no substitution of light for darkness now.

     

    Conclusion

    Gone are the days when wisdom was genuinely attributed to old age because old age then personified experience. Today, from the experience of technology and its effect on the modern society, the human wisdom of the bicycle age seems to have been rendered anachronistic by that of the internet age. Like the rise of a modern building from the debris of the old, the Yoruba Muslims of this generation have come of age and can no longer be swept with the rubles of irrelevance into the refuse bin. We do not need a borrowed mouth to speak out when necessary and nobody has a right to speak for us without our mandate.

    As it takes two to tango it must also take a give-and-take relationship to ventilate a peaceful environment in a mufti-religious society. No group should assume any vain superiority over others and expect peace to thrive. To live side by side and cohabit in harmony, mutual respect must be in the front burner of our relationship.

  • War against oil theft excites generals’ wives

    Their husbands are in the war front battling either the vicious Boko Haram insurgents in the north or the greedy oil thieves and pirates in the creeks of the Niger Delta region. Members of the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association (NAOWA) are on the move to compliment the efforts of their husbands.

    Mrs. Felly Minimah, their National President and wife of the Chief of Army Staff who recently described himself as a war-time general led the women out of their comfort zones. Their mission was to identify widows of fallen soldiers, commiserate with them and give them relief materials.

    Mrs Minimah and members of her group were in Bayelsa State. They were, however, excited by the successes recorded by the Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Pulo Shield, in its war against oil thieves, pipeline vandals, illegal bunkerers  and pirates.

    They were received and treated to a grand reception by their host and Commander,JTF, Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Atewe. Their presence especially at the cocktail party organised at a grandiose hotel in Yenagoa attracted other service commanders including the state Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Mr. Desmond Agu.

    Beyond the party, the elegantly dressed women were also curious about the activities of the JTF especially its war against oil thieves. Therefore, the next day, they relocated to the headquarters of the security outfit at Opolo in Yenagoa. They were later briefed by Atewe.

    Maj-Gen. Atewe reeled out the figures and insisted that the JTF was gradually winning the war against oil theft. The evidence could be seen in the increase in oil production recorded by oil multinationals, he said.

    He maintained that oil multinationals operating in the region were recording significant increase in outputs because of JTF’s war against economic sabotage. He said the military outfit arrested 20 vessels for oil theft in the region within the first qarter of this year.

    He noted that the troops of JTF apprehended many hardened sea pirates, kidnappers and cultists, adding that some of the suspects died in gun battle with soldiers. Atewe told the women that the command raided and destroyed over 854 illegal refineries in many creeks in the region.

    But he had a big challenge. The commander paused, looked at his audience and told the generals’ wives that the major headache of the command was dearth of logistics. He begged the army headquarters to send more gunboats, operational vehicles and personnel to the command.

    Maj-Gen. Atewe also rued the proliferation of illegal refineries in the region. He, however, voiced out his suggestion. He called on the Federal Government to consider the building of modular refineries across the region to discourage the establishment of illegal refineries.

    “On my arrival as a commander of JTF, l declared zero tolerance for all kinds of illegal operations in the region in line with the mandate of the JTF”, he said.

    He observed that oil thieves remained resilient in their misplaced efforts to milk the country dry. But the commander warned them and reinstated the resolve of JTF to smoke them out and hand them over to prosecuting agencies.

    He lamented that the activities of oil thieves were affecting the nation’s economy and posing serious threats to the health and livelihood of the people. He said the thieves had devised a means of offering huge bribes to personnel of JTF to enable them have unhindered access to the country’s oil resources.

    Maj-Gen. Atewe, however, praised his men for turning down mount-watering financial inducements offered them by suspected oil thieves. He specifically cited a case where an officer was offered N25million by a group of oil thieves as a bribe. But he said the officer did not only turned down the offer but also arrested the suspect and members of his group.

    He thanked members of NAOWA for their visit describing it morale boosting. In her response, Mrs Minimah commended JTF for its efforts in tackling  the activities of oil thieves in the region. She said members of NAOWA were satisfied at the dogged manner JTF prosecuted the war against theft of the commonwealth.

    She said NAOWA was on a familiarisation tour and visit of military formations and units across the country. She lamented the increasing number of military widows in many barracks across the country.

    But she noted that the association was formed to assist the poor and the less-privileged especially widows of deceased soldiers. She added that the number of widows was increasing on daily basis because of the security situation in the country.