The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian military

  • US military partners Nigerian to boost health

    US military partners Nigerian to boost health

    In order to contain spread of infectious diseases, the United States Department of Defense (USDD) yesterday said it will partner the Nigerian military in the development of clinical and laboratory capacities, bio-surveillance and response capabilities.

    This disclosure was made by the U.S.’ Deputy Chief of Missions, Maria Brewer at the unveiling of the Joint West Afrucan Research Group (JWARG) held in Lagos.

    Leveraging on existing capacities, she said they will in the next five years coordinate with the militaries of Nigeria, Liberia and Ghana to evaluate infectious diseases countermeasures in the countries.

    “Recently, the United States Government dedicated funding for disease control in West Africa. A significant amount has been awarded to the U.S. Military HIV Research Programme at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Naval Medical Research Centre.

    “This funding supports laboratory and clinical capacity building through military-to-military collaborations and academia. To address these deficiencies and achieve these objectives, we established the JWARG include collaborations between over 14 partners.

    “Over the next five years, we will leverage existing capacity, coordinate with host nation militaries and in-country partners for health security to develop clinical laboratory capacity, bio-surveillance and response capabilities, as well as evaluate infectious diseases countermeasures in Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia.

    Brewer who disclosed that the USDD has through the Walter Reed Programme-Nigeria (WRP-N), partnered with Nigeria’s Defence Ministry for 12 years in the treatment and prevention of HIV, Malaria as well as other infectious diseases.

    “The U.S. and Nigeria also are working together to address the worsening problem of tuberculosis in Nigeria. Our support to the future health of Nigerians is the single largest investment we have made world-wide,” said Brewer.

    She noted that the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa revealed both great potentials and deep deficiencies within the mechanisms for rapid medical response to public health emergencies.

    “While global coordination resulted in controlling this epidemic, greater investment in public health infrastructure and surveillance systems could have yielded better preparation and response to the outbreak,’’ she said.

    Lauding the gains of the partnership, Brewer said the initiative has grown from four to 36 locations in Nigeria within 12 years, adding “the Nigerian military and society stronger, healthier and better to move the country forward”.

    In her remark, the Commander, Nigerian Army Medical Corps, Major-General Abimbola Amusu said the partnership has improved the capacity of staff at military medical facilities, adding that they are being recognized as experts in HIV treatment.

    She said the collaboration has boosted their capacity in research on diseases as well as improved their quality of diagnosis on challenges predominant in the West African region.

  • Military is winning war against terror – GOC

    The Military says it is winning the war against terrorism in spite of some challenges.

    Brig. Gen. Victor Ezugwu, GOC, 7 Division of Nigerian Army, Maiduguri, stated this while speaking with newsmen in Maiduguri.

    “We are winning the war. We are bringing the war to conclusion, very soon,” Ezugwu said.

    He, however, said that Nigerians must support the military to sustain the successes so far recorded.

    “We want everybody to help us to support the peace that is emerging.

    “The peace is more enduring and more gratifying for us in Borno and other parts of the North-East of Nigeria,” Ezugwu said.

    He commended the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) as well as Non-Government
    Organisations (NGOs) that had been partnering with the military toward the
    success of the counter-insurgency operation.

    “I thank traditional rulers and NGOs that are stakeholders to us in the fight against insurgency.

    “Their accurate information, their support and advice to us have given rise to a growing civil/military relationship that is existing between the military and the authorities in our areas of operations,” Ezugwu said.

  • ‘Shi’ite group source of Boko Haram in Nigeria’

    ‘Shi’ite group source of Boko Haram in Nigeria’

    President of the Human Rights on Non-Violent Initiative, a Civil Society Organisation, Muhammad Idris has accused the Islamic Movement in Nigeria also known as Shi’ite of being the source of Boko Haram in the country.

    The Nigerian Army has come under scrutiny for what is described as violation of human rights in the role it played to contain the recent clash with Shi’ite members in Zaria where another CSO has advocated that the Chief of Army Staff vacate his office pending the determination of investigation into the matter.

    Speaking Thursday however in Kaduna ‎when he led members of his group on a solidarity visit to the General Officer Commanding 1 Mechanized Division, Nigerian Army, Major General Adeniyi Oyebade Kaduna commended the Nigerian Army for its role in the recent clash between the Army and Shiite.

    He ‎said the Nigerian Military is the only remaining tool to defend democracy, peace and unity of the country.

    “Boko Haram started by the Shi’ite group in 1997, the Shi’ite group is the source of Boko Haram if you go back in history, it is documented, some of them fled to Maidiguri, hide somewhere and regrouped where they later became a terror, fighting government and killing both civilians and military, destroying property and raping innocent women.

    “I as an indigene of Borno state from the town of Maidiguri can say that, the change we have seen in our area with the coming of the present administration is more than 100 per cent and the Nigerian Army deserves a Diamond medal, if a terrorist group that started in 2009 as documented

    “What happened in Zaria, Kaduna state, is a proven testimony that the military has the adequate intelligence and more informations a, bout happenings in the country. Any group who does what the Shi’ite did is not threading the part to peace and progress of this country.

    “We as Nigerians, are under one constitution‎, the Shi’ite group were trying to create violence when they attcked the convoy of the COAS and we appreciate the quick action taken by the Nigerian Army and pray that the group is brought under control because we believe our country is now on focus.

    “‎We support and throw our weight behind the military authority on any action they decide to take against the Shi’ite or another other group aiming to bridge the peace and unity in the country.

    “Before Lieutenant General Tukur Buruti came, Boko Haram were everywhere, if you are a father, you are afraid for your daughter, a husband will see his wife being taken away by members of Boko Haram but has no right to stop them for fear of his life, but with the coming of the present administration, Boko Haram is gradually become past tense and are winning the war against terrorism,” he said.

    He noted that the initiative will ensure it gives the general public adequate awareness on the issue with a view to changing the way the army is being misunderstood.

    On his part, the GOC, Major General Adeniyi Oyebade opened up on the clash saying he lost a soldier during the incident.

    “My soldier was killed in the attack and many others were injured who are presently receiving treatment in the hospital. During the Cordon and Search operation carried out in the residence of El-Zakzaky and two other strong holds of the Shi’ite, we tried to get in touch with Zakzaky to stop his members from attacking us, but some people who answered my call, refused to let us talk to him.

    “We took actions according to the rules of engagement as soldiers were being attacked by the Militant Wing of the sect known as the Hurra’s.

    “We know what it means to preserve life because the life of a human being is sacrosanct, but we have paid the supreme price to secure this country.”

    He noted that after the cordon and search operations, residents of Zaria came out in their hundreds chanting and praying for the army which they said has released them from bondage they have been in for many years.

    He urged Nigerians pointing accusing fingers on the Nigerian Army to go to Zaria if they want to know what happened there.

     

  • Nigerian military is being dragged into politics again

    Sixteen years after the forced withdrawal of the Nigerian military from power and the return to civilian democratic rule in the country, the nation is living in the shadows of the military again. Under his watch, President Jonathan’s weak and blundering PDP federal government is dragging the Nigerian military willy-nilly into partisan politics again. The presidential election which should have been held on February 14, two weeks ago, was postponed at the behest of the Nigerian Military High Command, barely a week before the due dates. The APC had run a strong and convincing electoral campaign and was heading towards victory if the elections were held on February14. President Jonathan resorted to the military to delay the elections to avoid his defeat. But delaying the elections for six weeks will not buy President Jonathan the time he needs to win. It will not alter his appalling record in office. And this Gestapo method is unacceptable.

    But the effort to delay the elections actually began at his Chatham House lecture in London when the National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dansuki, a scion of the Sokoto caliphate, told his bemused British audience that the date for the elections, set a year ago, might have to be changed because of the delay in the distribution and collection of the voters’ cards (PVC). There was no reference by him then to any security concerns. As at that date, two or three weeks before the elections, over 60 per cent of the voters’ cards had in fact been collected, with the certainty that more cards would be collected in the intervening period. The idea that all potential voters will collect their voters’ cards is not practical, given the existing voters’ apathy over the elections. In fact, less than half of those who are eligible to vote in Nigeria have usually exercised that right. It is highly unlikely that more than 70 per cent of those registered to vote will actually collect their cards.

    That such a critical proposal regarding a change in dates for the elections should have been made by Col. Dansuki who, in his capacity as National Security Adviser, should have nothing to do with the electoral process, is disturbing and improper. That this suggestion was made abroad, and not in Nigeria, was ominous. It was meant to appease the international community, and not Nigerians to whom the government owed an explanation for the proposal to change the dates of the elections to suit President Jonathan, the PDP presidential candidate. The proposal met with strong opposition both in Nigeria and abroad. The American Secretary of State, John Kerry, had been dispatched to Abuja to advice the federal government against any change in dates. Such a delicate matter involving the suggestion for a change of date could not have been made without the imprimatur and authority of President Jonathan and his ruling PDP. Dasuki merely flew the kite and it was overwhelmingly rejected at home and abroad

    The proposal for a change of date on alleged grounds of security concerns was turned down by the National Council of States at its Abuja meeting, at which Jega, the chairman of the Electoral Commission (INEC), also announced that he and his Commission were ready for the elections and did not consider a change in dates necessary, or even desirable, for whatever reason. In fact, he claimed then that his Commission was better prepared to hold the elections on the due dates than in 2011.  To get around this procedural difficulty and secure a delay in the date of the elections, President Jonathan got his Army High Command to send a letter to INEC that the Nigerian military could not, on security grounds, guarantee the dates proposed, and that in the intervening period, it was intensifying its attack on Boko Haram.  The real reason for the change of dates is that President Jonathan needed more time to intensify his faltering campaign. As former president Obasanjo had warned the nation, winning the elections had become a ‘do or die’ affair for the president and his PDP. But getting the military to veto the dates of the elections is not in the national interest. It has created a bad precedent that the military can easily use in future.

    Nigeria has an Army of nearly 200,000 men, out of which it has deployed less than a division against the raging insurgency in the North East. How come it cannot secure the elections with the remaining troops? In any case, the primary responsibility for maintaining law and order at all times internally rests with the Police, and not the Army. Throughout this entire crisis, President Jonathan has kept mute about the source of the military demarche on the electoral commission. President Jonathan is trying to hide behind a finger, but no one is deceived that the voice is Esau’s and the hand Jacob’s. He has put the Military High Commission in an invidious and embarrassing situation by prompting its intervention in the electoral process, a move that is plainly unconstitutional and improper. If he had wanted the elections held on the original dates he, as Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces, should simply have issued the necessary orders for the Armed Forces to provide the necessary security logistics for the elections to be held on the original dates proposed. In any case, the security role of the armed forces in the elections is limited both by law and the Constitution. A recent judgment in the Appellate Court has ruled emphatically that the Armed Forces cannot, under whatever guise, be deployed for the purpose of advancing, or promoting, the electoral fortunes of one party or the other. What this means in plain terms is that the armed forces cannot legally be deployed to intimidate, harass, or victimize the supporters of one political party, or the other, and that in discharging its limited role during elections, it should be professional, and politically neutral in the electoral process.

    We now have incontrovertible evidence in the ‘Sagir case’ of the role played by some agents of the Armed Forces in the Ekiti state elections in which Governor Fayemi of the APC was fraudulently denied victory through the subversive manipulation of the electoral process by military and civilian agents of the PDP in the elections. In the Osun state elections, the use of hooded and armed men, as well as direct and indirect intervention by military agents of the PDP, almost led to the defeat of Governor Aregbesola of the APC. There is also some evidence that in his ‘do or die’ presidential elections of 2003, President Obasanjo, who is now shouting himself hoarse from the roof tops against the PDP strategy of winning the elections by hook or crook, made use of the security agencies to subvert the electoral process by offering them massive bribes to ensure the electoral victory of the PDP in the South West states in which the AD held sway. Only Lagos successfully resisted Obasanjo’s massive electoral fraud in those elections.

    Now, as we should by now have learnt from our post independence electoral experience, encouraging the Armed Forces to intervene in the electoral process is fraught with grave dangers and severe consequences. It is a wanton subversion of democracy and the electoral process. From 1962 to 1965 when the AG government of the former Western region was plunged into a constitutional crisis, the Balewa federal coalition government had used the armed forces to suppress the civil rebellion against the unpopular Akintola/Fani-Kayode NNDP government in the region. Relying on the Army, both Akintola and Fani-Kayode bragged that, whether or not the electorate voted for them, they would be declared the winner of the election. They were so declared, but strong and swift public reaction against the bizarre results declared led to the January, 1966, military coup d’etat in which Akintola lost his life. Fani- Kayode was brought to Lagos by the coup planners and was to have been eliminated, but was spared by then Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, who personally secured his release. Gowon led a battalion of troops loyal to the federal government. In fact, as revealed by then Lt. Col. Hilary Njoku in his book ’A Tragedy without heroes’ on the January, 1966, coup, there were two coups being planned; one by the Brigadiers, and the other by the Majors. The Balewa federal government had grown so weak, so badly divided, so chaotic, and so feckless that it could no longer survive without the support of an Army that had, itself, become so badly divided, partisan and professionally rudderless. In the ensuing civil war six million Nigerians, most of them civilians, died.

    This tragic scenario is being replayed now with the faltering PDP federal government leaning increasingly on the Nigerian Armed Forces to apply its dirty electoral tricks to maintain its hold on power. This is subversive of the electoral process and Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. President Jonathan has said there will be no further shifts in the dates of the elections. He must be held to his public assurances and stop dragging the Armed Forces illegally into the electoral process.

  • No, military has learnt little

    IN the light of Captain Sagir Koli’s revelations of the abuse to which the Nigerian military has been subjected, it is surprising that in their reaction to Chief Obasanjo’s denunciation of their role in politics, the military could still lend whatever is left of their credibility to an infamous lie. Reacting to Chief Obasanjo’s claim that President Jonathan postponed the elections in order to use service chiefs to plot tenure extension, the Defence Headquarters said: “…Indeed, he (Obasanjo) needs to be told that by virtue of their better training, exposure, education, assessment and environment, the military personnel of today are already far beyond his level in their appreciation of democracy and it’s indispensability for the stable and prosperous society which Nigerians cherish…The Nigerian military is now better placed to strive for the maintenance of the legacies and ethos of service, valour, subordination to constituted authorities, and non-partisan commitment to duty and fatherland.” This is an infernal lie.

    Chief Obasanjo is not wrong about them. Every Nigerian knows, and the generals themselves know, not to say the Jonathan presidency which orchestrates the partisanship of the military, that the Nigerian military has become brazenly, unwisely and short-sightedly partisan. They were partisan in the Ekiti elections, they were partisan in the Osun polls, and last year they behaved most irresponsibly partisan in attacking the press and subverting the constitution, and are believed to be planning another round of attack on free speech. Their denial of partisanship is false; it is not hidden at all.

  • Don’t let them die

    Don’t let them die

    These are traumatic times for the nation. The country has been literally foaming in blood.  We may have to reach back to the apogee of the In?a empire for the equivalent of such medieval bloodletting. The outgoing year is our own annus horribilis, no doubt about that. Before our eyes, Nigeria has become a legendary abattoir with the odour of gore and human dismemberment hanging heavily in the air. The only consolation is that if compulsory change does not come to these climes very soon, we can as well call in the receivers.

    When a nation is in such historic distress, it can be assumed that its major institutions are also afflicted. An organic crisis of the state does not spare the vital organs of state.  The army is the premier institutional bulwark of the state. If we say Nigeria is in traumatic distress, the trauma is writ large over the military in its operational and strategic capacity as well as its offensive and defensive capability.

    Despite its return to strict professionalism and the enviable strides it has taken in the demilitarization of the polity, the Nigerian military has not been smelling of rose in recent times. The army has suffered a painful and tragic demystification. Once fabled and much respected for its peace-keeping prowess abroad, the Nigerian military has been humbled and taken to the cleaners by a hitherto rag-tag militia which has now acquired the offensive deadliness of a well-motivated fighting force.

    Reader of this column would have noticed a reluctance to discuss military matters. This is because of the sensitive nature of national security and the territorial integrity of a nation, no matter who is in temporary power.  But the military is subordinated to civil authorities because military matters are far too serious and important to be left to professional soldiers.  As the modern world is proving, the armoury of knowledge is far superior to knowledge of armoury. The human brains carry the deadliest ordnance.

    Yet as the last defender of the state and the ultimate bulwark against insecurity and anarchy, the military must be insured and insulated against petty partisan politics. A disgraced army is not only a danger unto itself but a grave danger to the nation. When the army ceases to exist as an effective fighting force, the nation itself ceases to exist as a viable proposition.  This is why whatever its past misjudgment and its current misdemeanour, enlightened self-interest dictates an urgent engagement with the military in order to help them out of the current cul de sac.

    There is opportunity in every crisis and there is no terrible situation without its redeeming features.  It is just as well that the Boko Haram crisis remains within the ambit of an internal security operation rather than outright war against an external enemy.  That notwithstanding, the fallout has been equally remarkable. At the last count, eighty officers and men of the army have been sentenced to death for mutiny.  About two hundred enlisted men are in the dock awaiting trial and sentencing.  It doesn’t get more grotesquely unsettling.

    Let us be clear about something. There can be no question of condoning mutiny which is a grievous offence that undermines the cohesiveness and integrity of the army as an effective fighting force. In dire war situations, mutineers, deserters, cowards and other saboteurs are often rounded up and summarily shot without any recourse to legal acrobatics.

    Yet the disproportionate number of culprits and the nature of insubordination in this case suggest something more fundamental than routine mutiny.  Many of these men have been shouting from the rooftop that their real offence was to have the temerity to ask for better and more adequate weaponry to conduct a campaign against an enemy armed with modern and sophisticated ordnance. This effrontery has merely earned them an elongated charge sheet.

    Last Friday, at a press briefing that was as bizarre as it was bristling with dark comedy, the military paraded an untagged colonel as a whistle-blowing suspect. Morale and discipline appeared to be at their lowest ebb. Even the most malignant enemy of the black race must be sad and sorry that this is happening to the army of the greatest conglomeration of black souls in the world.

    All of which suggest that as usual we may be treating the symptom while ignoring the fundamental ailment.  An internet cynic noted wryly that at this rate the army may as well end up putting a whole brigade on trial for mutiny. The sheer absurdity of the suggestion ought to alert us that we may actually be looking at something probably more sinister: a complete collapse of discipline and the fracturing of the army.  Having fought a civil war without the army fracturing, the nation may well be suffering from the accumulated stress of partially resolved crises.

    The ongoing armed critique of the nation and the state by the Boko Haram insurgency has exposed the grave flaws of both in a way that the civil war and the numerous coups and military uprisings never did. Coups and civil wars are endogamous crises of the state, internal disputes among state personnel who have gone to the same schools and learnt the same fighting strategy. The contradictions are not fundamental and are easily resolved.

    Insurgency, on the other hand, particularly religious insurgency, is an exogamous crisis and an externally imposed confrontation with a different paradigm of engagement and a different order of battle. It is a duel unto death without any mediating or countervailing circumstances. The current crisis of the Nigerian military formations is a reflection of a more fundamental crisis of the Nigerian state and nation. Although the Boko Haram crisis could have been better handled, the ascendant generation of Nigerian military leadership cannot be held responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Endogamous crises of the state, because they involve non-fundamental contradictions, are ironically a double-edged sword. Since they are easily resolved and without rigorous inquest and sufficient retribution they leave a trail of impunity and a culture of state promiscuity. For example, because they were still in passive power, the military got away with their misadventure in partisan politics without properly evaluating its short term and long term effect on the institution. Till date, no rigorous inquest was ever conducted into the real cause and consequences of the civil war.

    It is the sins of omission and commission of their forebears that have caught up with the Nigerian military. When he was asked why the post-Saddam Iraqi army wilts so pathetically before the ferocious onslaught of the ISIS fighters , the American ambassador noted tersely that it was because they had nothing to fight for.  Yet this was the fragment of the same army whose forebears fought the Iranians toe to toe in a seven year grudge match between the Shitte elite of Iran and the ascendant Sunni hegemonists of Iraq.

    The reason for this contrasting attitude within what is supposed to be the same military formation is very simple. Under the tyrannical and cruelly whimsical Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi military had something to fight for. It could be a debased and authoritarian form of Iraqi nationalism but it worked. In the Iraq of post-American occupation, both nation and nationalism have disappeared leaving a volcanic landscape permanently irrigated by blood.

    The failure of successive generations of Nigerian leaders to evolve a national ideology as a byproduct of forging the disparate nationalities into an organic community has now returned to haunt the military in its operative and strategic capacity. Simply put, the Nigeria army has nothing to fight for. All the great armies the world has seen, from the army of Alexander the great that swept all before it, the Tartan hordes of Genghis Khan, the human waves of Mao tse Tung, to the rugged Vietnamese insurgents of Ho Chi Minh, have always had something to fight for. For centuries, the political notion of American Exceptionalism powered its fighting forces.

    Against the ferocious Boko Haram insurgents, it is the military’s residual fighting flair developed in the course of several international peace-keeping operations that has kept it going.  It was the fighting spirit that produced the likes of the late, iconic Brigadier Maxwell Khobe whose heroic exploits in Sierra Leone have entered military legend and folklore. But it relied on individual talent rather than on solid tradition.

    Needless to add they can only thrive and flourish within the context of conventional military operations against mainly conventional fighting forces and small time scoundrels.  Against an unconventional fighting force with determination and a suicidal frame of mind, an ill-equipped and de-motivated army is bound to have its back to the wall. Only an army imbued with formidable nationalist zeal combined with superior knowledge and cutting edge technology can trump the wild and merciless fanaticism of a fighting outfit spurred by religious extremism.

    The transformation of the Nigerian military into a modern and effective fighting force cannot be divorced from the transformation of the Nigerian nation itself to true political and economic modernity. We can have a debate about the principles and modalities as part of the current pitch for genuine change. Meanwhile and in the interest of concerned compatriots and posterity, the Nigerian army should immediately put on hold the impending judicial slaughter of its own. Nigeria has already witnessed too much bloodshed in the last few years.  Please don’t let these men die.

  • The military and its ‘enemies’

    The military and its ‘enemies’

    The Nigerian military finds itself in an unusual position. Over the last fifty odd years it has often been cast in the role of saviour. It fought the Biafran secession and preserved the Nigerian federation – a feat that many Civil War veterans would never let us forget.

    It has, for the bulk of our years as an independent nation taken it upon itself, to ‘rescue’ the country in moments of ‘drift’, plunging headlong into the extra-constitutional role of governance. Truly, on many of those occasions when the soldiers stepped in the populace were only too relieved to see bungling politicians tossed out on their ears.

    Even when the military was not meddling in government, its competence was often celebrated internationally as Nigerian troops excelled in a number of continental and United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping operations.

    For such an institution used to receiving plaudits, it is hard to be humble. It is even harder when you have come to accept your billing as this great fighting machine, to suddenly be at the receiving end of trenchant criticism that raises questions about your competence.

    Dealing with this awkward situation has proven a test over which the military and its spokesmen have not handled well. Suddenly, they see grand conspiracies and enemies everywhere.

    Against the backdrop of unprecedented international focus on the country following the bombing at the Nyanya, Abuja motorpark, as well as the abduction of over 270 Chibok schoolgirls, the most readily identifiable “foes” of this powerful institution have become the media – local and foreign – and the hashtag activists seeking the release of the abductees.

    This last week, Director of Army Public Relations, Brig-Gen. Olajide Laleye, repeated statements that suggest the military truly believe some people want to destroy it as an institution. Speaking in Abuja at the monthly briefing on the activities of the army in the North-East where the Boko Haram insurgency has been raging, he said: ‘The Nigerian Army has been under a deliberate and concerted effort by some individuals, bodies and organisations to tarnish its good image.

    “These groups and their international collaborators are trying hard to portray the Nigerian military as corrupt with myriad of problems and challenges ranging from morale of troops, equipment and troops welfare.”

    The general argued that the campaigns were calculated to undermine the corporate existence of the army and downplay its achievements. The army which he said was one of the binding forces uniting the country was far from weak and ineffective.

    Interestingly, the same week when Laleye was thumping his chest, the army’s Chief of Account and Budget, Major General Abdullahi Muraina, while speaking at the opening of the 2014 training week of the Nigerian Army Finance Corps (NAFC) for Warrant Officer/Senior Non-Commissioned Officers at Jaji, Kaduna State, said current budgetary allocation to the military was inadequate to meet the contemporary security challenges and cater for the welfare of the army.

    Muraina broke it down for journalists this way. “The army budget for this year is just N4.8billion. Now, to provide only one item for the troops engaged in the operation in the North-East… Assuming we committed 20,000 troops, the jacket and the helmet is on the average of about $1,000. If you change that to naira, it is about N150, 000. This means they are going to spend about $20million and that is about N3billion.

    “N3billion as a percentage of N4.8billion which is the capital budget for this year is more than 50 per cent and that is just one item.  We are not talking about uniforms; we are not talking about boots, we are not talking about structures where they will stay. We are not talking about training – because training is key to enhancing the capability of the force.”

    The issues of adequately funding and proper equipment was alluded to by Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima a while back and defensive Federal Government officials – including President Goodluck Jonathan – laid into him for suggesting that Boko Haram fighters were better equipped than our troops. Now we have the army’s purse keeper going on record to say they have issues with money.

    There are serious problems hampering the effectiveness of the military’s campaign in the North-East – and they are not limited to finance alone. Those challenges are the real enemies to be attacked, not the media, #Bring Back Our Girls protesters and their so-called “foreign collaborators.”

    For anyone to suggest that the media are the issue is downright ludicrous. What would be the motive driving this imaginary agenda of destroying the military?

    For these charges to stick motive must be established. Anyone who understands the way the media works knows that it is virtually impossible to get them to rally behind one agenda because of conflicting proprietary interest, political affiliations and worldview.

    The real problem for Nigeria’s military is that it is yet to understand that intense scrutiny is inevitable in the relentless 24/7 news cycle. Does anyone honestly expect the media not to report when troops turn their guns on the General Officer Commanding (GOC) as reportedly happened in Borno recently?

    What newspaper worth its salt would refuse to report the Nyanya bomb blast that claimed 100 lives? What sort of news medium would not analyse the context in which the attack happened and ask questions about the role of the military and political leadership?

    The snatching of over 270 Chibok schoolgirls from their dormitory by brutal terrorists is unprecedented anywhere in the world. It is a gripping human drama that no news organisation can ignore. It is the power of the story that attracted the CNNs, Aljazeeras and BBCs of this world. They have not focused on an anonymous village in Southern Borno ‘just to destroy Nigeria’s military.’

    Whatever they have done over the Chibok story, they have done in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and in their own countries. It is almost two years since Libyan gunmen stormed the United States consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador. The story of that tragic incident has refused to die because of media and congressional scrutiny. The same thing with America’s intervention in Afghanistan… No one has suggested that this scrutiny is intended to destroy the US military.

    It is this same mentality that led spokesmen of the Jonathan administration to accuse the opposition of treason just because they made certain caustic and critical comments!

    Unfortunately for our political establishment who don’t want to be accountable to anybody, intrusive reporting and uncommon scrutiny of their actions is here to stay. Terror is the issue of the 21st century and the world is interested. Thanks to Boko Haram’s brutality Nigeria has become the latest terrorism frontier – meaning she’ll be trapped in the global spotlight for years to come.

    Politicians, the military and all those managing this insurgency must be prepared to answer questions. We opened the door when we failed to tackle what we had advertised as a local issue. Now that we have begged for foreign help, we must realise it is not a freebie. It comes with a price: scrutiny and accountability.

  • Seventy salutes to the people’s admiral

    General ignorance should not be an excuse for the ignorance of generals. While majority of Nigerians, disoriented by poverty and the trauma of worthlessness, are being programmed to celebrate fake and phony heroes, one of the greatest products of the Nigerian military, Admiral Godwin Ndubuisi Kanu, recently turned 70. In keeping with the man’s modesty, humility and self-effacement, the day passed quietly and without any funfair or futile fireworks.

    A longstanding friend of column and columnist, Kanu is wonderfully cerebral and even his most casual thoughts are marked by painstaking rigour and analytical sophistication. As they say, it is not where a man stands in times of comfort that attests to his true worth but where he pitches his tent in times of discomfort. Twice in his lifetime, Kanu has turned his back on the very institution that produced him, and at grave personal peril and discomfort. The small measure of freedom Nigerians enjoy today and the return of professionalism to the military are due to the quiet labours of many unsung military heroes. Snooper salutes this illustrious son of Ovim and Nigeria and wishes him many more years of heroic services to the fatherland.