Postscript By Waziri Adio, Email: waziri.adio@thisdaylive.com
The last few weeks have not been good for us in our fight against terrorism. And that is putting it mildly. Boko Haram has put our troops on the back-foot and has significantly expanded the climate of fear beyond its immediate areas of operation. More than at any other time, we need President Goodluck Jonathan to rise up to the occasion and earn his stripes or epaulettes as our Commander-in-Chief. He needs to take charge and lead this war with more decisiveness before the terrorists run us out of territory. President Jonathan needs to quickly shake things up, starting with, but not limited to the leadership of our security agencies.
The last few weeks have not been good for us in our fight against terrorism. And that is putting it mildly. Boko Haram has put our troops on the back-foot and has significantly expanded the climate of fear beyond its immediate areas of operation. More than at any other time, we need President Goodluck Jonathan to rise up to the occasion and earn his stripes or epaulettes as our Commander-in-Chief. He needs to take charge and lead this war with more decisiveness before the terrorists run us out of territory. President Jonathan needs to quickly shake things up, starting with, but not limited to the leadership of our security agencies.
If he needed any evidence that those leading the war on terror and that
our current war-plan are not producing the desired result, President
Jonathan got more than enough in the space of two weeks. Within that
time, Boko Haram became more murderous and more audacious, graduating
from a mere hit-and-run terrorist organisation to a conquest-minded
terror group, with an eye on sitting pretty on our territory. Within
that time, Boko Haram took over police training academies in two states.
Within that time, Boko Haram captured Gwoza, Gamboru-Ngala and Dikwa in
Borno State and Limankara in Adamawa State, and hoisted its flags as
indication of conquest. And within that time, Abubakar Shekau, the
leader of the terrorist group, declared an Islamic Caliphate within our
country. This last move, which has been dismissed by our officials as
delusional and crazy, clearly has Islamic state written all over it and
should get all of us, including our president, deeply worried. It has
clearly bumped this war in another territory.
Unfortunately, the news from our side has been equally, if not more,
disturbing. And it is disturbing because it shows a soughing mismatch
between our seriousness about winning this war and the determination of
the increasingly emboldened terrorists. About the same time that Boko
Haram launched a series of lightning offensives against us, wives of
some soldiers demonstrated in Maiduguri against the deployment of their
husbands to fight the insurgents, a group of soldiers reportedly refused
to confront the terrorists without adequate arms, and 480 Nigerian
soldiers “tactically manoeuvred” into Cameroun and had to be disarmed,
quartered and escorted back to Nigeria days after by our less
illustrious neighbour.
The curious case of the 480 soldiers is a new low for us as a country
as well as a sad marker of the sharp decline of our military profile and
prowess. We used to be the big brother in the neighbourhood, with our
soldiers gallantly bailing out other countries in distress, and with
remarkable success, especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Now we are
becoming both a laughing stock and a potential problem for the
sub-region and a clear worry for the world.
To be sure, fighting terrorism remains uncharted territory even for the
most technologically and militarily advanced countries. Terrorism is
asymmetrical warfare with no known enemies and no clear enemy lines.
Unlike in conventional warfare that traditional militaries are trained
for, the enemy in asymmetrical warfare thrives on disguise, sabotage,
surprise and fear. These challenges should be acknowledged, though it
does not mean we could not have done better given the residual and
immediate experience of our troops in fighting insurgents at home and
abroad and given the quantum of resources allocated to this war so far.
Also, the gallant efforts and uncommon sacrifice of our troops must be
appreciated. They put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But this
is the more reason we should make adequate provisions for them. Sadly,
this doesn’t seem so. For a while now, national and international media
have been heaving with stories about how corruption is undermining the
war against terror, about how our soldiers are lowly resourced, poorly
motivated and clearly out-gunned by the terrorists, about how soldiers
lobby not to be posted to the North-east, about how our soldiers are
deserting in droves, and about occasional mutinies. Most of those
stories have been brushed aside or rebutted with clever sound-bites.
With issues of morale, welfare, and ammunition denied rather than
addressed, it was inevitable that soldiers’ wives would become
demonstrators, or that soldiers themselves would refuse to fight or
would conveniently undertake tactical manoeuvres into another country.
Clearly, the reverses of the last two weeks have been well foretold. It
is important that our Commander-in-Chief gives the marching orders for
these recent setbacks to be reversed. But regaining lost grounds will
not be enough. President Jonathan needs to come to terms with the fact
that we are officially in a state of war and that his most important job
as both president and Commander-in-Chief is to secure our territory and
keep us safe. His transformation agenda is important, but real
transformation can only occur and make sense when there is security of
life and property. At the moment, most Nigerians do not feel secure,
including those living far from the assumed frontlines. This is partly
because there is no clear sign we are winning the war.
The good news is that most Nigerians are convinced that our forces are
capable of routing the insurgents if given the necessary support and
leadership. But the word out there is that operational support is low,
cornered by those in the cosy offices at the expense of those on the
battle-fields. What could pass for the military and the civilian
leadership of the war does not look fit-for-purpose. Members of our
military high command, save for a few, look mostly out of shape and
uninspiring. Though intelligence gathering should be at the heart of the
war against terror, the Department of State Security (DSS) is more
interested in showboating and in engaging perceived enemies of the
government. The Minister of Defence is mysteriously under the radar
while the junior minister seems more interested in burnishing his
political profile.
As the Commander-in-Chief, President Jonathan needs to demonstrate that
the task of defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria and of
protecting Nigerians is dear to him. He should take advantage of the
recent setbacks to salvage the flailing war on terror. His present war
team is not helping him much. He should be tired of all the excuses and
the lies. He should be embarrassed about how our country is being
diminished and about how Nigerians are living in fear, turned to
refugees in neighbouring countries and kidnapped and killed at will by
some deranged terrorists. He needs a new war team. He needs people with
fresh ideas and with fire in their bellies. Shaking up the team will
inspire confidence, will signal that result is important to our
president, and will show that he is determined to win this war.
But changing the team is not enough. The president needs to ensure
accountability in the management of allocated resources and insist that
our troops are adequately taken care of and well-motivated, including
with symbolic gesture of being visited by their Commander-in-Chief.
Getting more money for the war effort might be important, but much more
important is to ensure that we are not just throwing money at problems
and not creating a tunnel for scarce public resource to end up in
private pockets or in the war-chest for a different war. The president
should also insist on a comprehensive review of our war plan. At the
moment, what we do most of the time is reacting while the terrorists
dictate the pace. We need to improve both our reaction time and our
offensive capabilities.
We should not be reduced to celebrating recovery of territories that
shouldn’t have been taken over in the first place. With combined ground
and air power, we need to smoke out the terrorists and decimate them.
While the soft approach to fighting terrorism is a good complement of
the military approach and is a reasonable medium to long-term strategy,
we need to comprehensively rout the terrorists first. So we need to
urgently fix our boots-on-the-ground approach. And lastly, the president
needs to address the mind-set that frames Boko Haram as a political
campaign against him by a section of the country and the opposition.
Apart from being defeatist, this mind-set is divisive and unhelpful.
This is a war against Nigeria and Nigerians. We don’t need excuses from
our president. We need him to do what presidents and Commanders-in-Chief
do.
ThisDay
![Photo: Boko Haram General Ihejirika: A Loony Biafra Fanatic Or Just Deadly Corrupt?
Dr. Peregrino Brimah
The Federal Government of Nigeria has not come out to reject the incriminating statements made by its employed Chief Boko Haram negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, from Australia, who three days ago named former Chief of army staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika and a former governor of Borno state, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, both ruling party members, as the top sponsors of the Boko Haram deadly sect that has killed more than a hundred thousand Nigerians and displaced over four million, mostly farmers in the nation’s north.
For some reason I bet the Jonathan government will never discredit him because they know he knows much more he is not yet saying and they will not want to risk him getting bitter and telling Nigerians much more of the truth they are dying, literally dying to know.
It can be concluded that the ex-military chief is a top sponsor of Boko Haram. The inefficiency and gross sabotage of the military and military operations over the past four years of his reign are living and dead testimony of his membership role in the organization. Well noted military abandonments of post prior to Boko Haram attacks, the facilitated transfer of Nigeria’s best weapons, armored tanks and APC’s (taken up north to “combat the terrorists) by the military to Boko Haram throughout his tenure and continuing today are further evidence of his support of the group.
The question Nigerians now ask is, why? Why will a Christian army general from the southeast sponsor a group that is promoted as being radical “islamist?”
The answer must lie between or be a combination of the following:
Retired general Azubuike Ihejirika is likely a loony Biafra Zionist fanatic. His interests lie in the destruction of the north of the nation which he blames for the defeat of Ojukwu’s Biafra secessionist attempt. This will explain why the Nigerian military men drafted to protect a well respected former general, who fought valiantly on the Nigerian side against Biafra, late General Muhammed Shuwa, were described to have withdrawn and looked on as the general was assassinated at his home. Of course General Ihejirika not court-martialing these men proves his involvement.
General Azubuike Ihejirika would have been enjoying the havoc caused by Boko Haram on the north along with the handful of fellow loony fanatics like himself that always celebrate the deaths and destruction to the north and call it “pay-back,” not mindful of the fact that hundreds of thousands of innocent people who were not even born during the civil war; and millions who did not participate in any way are the majority of victims.
There are hundreds of cases worldwide where people and States act in like fashion with conspiracies to undermine others they hate. In many of these events, these mischief makers even sacrifice their own in false-flags to achieve their ulterior goal.
It is evident that General Ihejirika did not mind as Boko Haram continued to murder Nigerians in the north. He vehemently opposed the request for additional troops made by the then Chief of defense, Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim to curb Boko Haram’s onslaught. It can be recollected that by May last year, Boko Haram had taken over 2/3rds of Borno and the General still rejected the demands for the needed troops and was seen driving in convoy’s in Abuja building his multi-billion hotel.
It was later that May, after we released a high level intelligence report, alerting the world about the permitted occupation of the north by ragtag terrorists, that Nigeria’s President and the General were finally forced, reluctantly, to declare a State of emergency and finally draft the needed troops.
It can also be recollected that as soon as victory was in sight and the first “Shekau” was killed by the then Joint Task Force – in August of 2013 – that the Nigerian president and General Ihejirika stopped the successful coordinated JTF-CivilianJTF assault on Boko Haram and re-deployed all troops with knowhow of the war; and created a docile 7 division army that was now “banned” from cooperating with the CivilianJTF and would leave Boko Haram to recover and re-establish their assault on the farmers of the north.
The ex-general was fulfilling the dream of the handful of fanatics who believe self-determination can only be gotten through murder. Many of us will fight for the liberation of not only the Igbo States if the people so desire, but also every Nigerian zone that wants sovereignty and self-determination; but one must not and need not shed a drop of innocent blood to achieve this and any other goals.
Corruption is also a motive for his actions sponsoring Boko Haram. The alleged war against terror is a great source of wealth for the army chiefs. A quarter of Nigeria’s budget goes to financing this war and yet several reports, some by ENDS and others by SaharaReporters have exposed how the Nigerian army has been severely underfunded. Soldiers sleep and eat in shameful condition. They wear substandard gear and sometimes two army divisions are combined to one unit to half the cost of operations. The billions allocated to the war on terror have been swallowed by Nigeria’s executive government and the top army chiefs. Soldiers complained to us that they are given only two rounds of ammunition to defend barracks’ with instead of 10 times that, the minimum required allocation. Soldiers complained that they had to beg the armory for rounds. The former General was stuffing his mouth with money for the army beyond belief.
He has been reportedly constructing mansions and ultra-modern hotels on the money for Nigeria’s defense. Clearly the preservation and continuation of the war was in his interest and is still in the interest of Nigeria’s army chiefs as it gives them stupendous wealth under in the “democratic” era where they are out of government.
The ex-General made an inadvertent confession of the sabotaging of the needed development of the Nigerian army in his rascally diversionary attack on the person of El-Rufai when these accusations were first published. He admitted and alleged in that statement published in the Vanguard that “it was because money was not spent on the army that Boko Haram was successful.” So #WhereIsOurMoney? Is it money for the Nigerian army that he spends on Boko Haram? What wicked treachery!
If I may add a third reason- the former army Chief is a known as a PDP ruling party potential gubernatorial candidate for Abia State. The ruling PDP party has always utilized Boko Haram as a means of tarnishing the image of their opposition. It can be recollected that the former Party chairman and a best friend of the President, Bamanga Tukur, still on public salary, said, “Boko Haram is fighting for justice, Boko Haram is another name for justice.” General Ihejrika on this basis would have been doing the party’s bidding by destroying the north, most especially opposition States.
We must thank the Chibok grls for their prayers which the Lord is answering by revealing the identities of those doing this to them and their people. Nigerians can bet on more revelations in the coming days and months. Meanwhile the nation waits as it expects these sponsors to be arrested in the coming days; else the Jonathan government will be again more seriously implicated in Boko Haram sponsorship.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something] Email: drbrimah@ends.ng Twitter: @EveryNigerian](https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/s403x403/10600443_827490270617737_2775285311840057432_n.jpg?oh=12e09803708fede5ef674fae12dc06ba&oe=5479BBA3)
