Former Emir of Gwandu, Alhaji. Al-Mustapha Haruna Jokolo, a retired
Major and former Aide-de-camp to former Head of State and All
Progressives Congress chieftain, General Muhammad Buhari, has expressed
deep concern over the state of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
The outspoken officer who had a distinguished career in the military
is disturbed that soldiers in uniform today are not being properly
equipped, trained and inspired to give their utmost. He argues that this
is the result of years of breakdown of the institutional framework and
strict observance of the proper procedure for management of the
finances of the armed services. In this two-part interview, Jokolo
explains in some detail and indirectly highlights what needs to be done
to begin the process of rebuilding the psyche of the military.
Excerpts…
The death sentence handed some soldiers who were alleged to have
been involved in mutiny by the Military Court Martial has generated
controversy. Some say the sentence is in order and others have
contrary opinions. Which side are you? You are a military man because
they say once a soldier man always a soldier.
I was a soldier. The Court Martial before and after is a very dicey
situation that we find ourselves in. What led to the mutiny? That’s
what one should find out first. For soldiers to mutiny is a very serious
offence. But you cannot just take it on its face value to say they have
mutinied; then you make them face a court martial and they are
sentenced to death. If I were the Chief of Army Staff or the Minister of
Defence or the Commander-in-Chief, I will first of all order a thorough
investigation by uninterested persons and not by the military
themselves conducting the investigation. I will get retired military
officers with knowledge of law, those with Military Police and
Intelligence training, high ranking officers with junior officers to go
to the scene of the crime to find out from the soldiers without the
soldiers on the ground being there. Just isolate the officers, let the
soldiers feel secured and free to open their minds and tell you what
their grievances are. What would warrant them to mutiny? Was it that
they did not have good training before being sent on a mission or that
they didn’t know the seriousness of mutiny? Or there was some
lackadaisical attitude from the officers themselves? Is it that they do
not know how to treat their subordinates? Or, take a look at the
operation itself. Were they handicapped that they did not have enough
weapons, materials and equipment to fight the war? All these have to
bear on the outcome of the investigations. Then, I will also find out
from the officers, what warranted the soldiers to mutiny? What kind of
training did these officers have? Were they well trained to understand
what relationship should be between the officer and the soldier?
Because you have to know that the soldier is responsible for carrying
out his duties as assigned to him. And you the officer is to supervise
him.
But that espirit-de-corps must be maintained because sometimes, your
life depends on that soldier. And that is why you train together as a
unit so that if anyone of you makes one mistake, you are given
punishment together. Like in the NDA, we were trained together to
disregard our tribes, religion, everything to look at ourselves as one
unit so that if, for instance, there is an ambush, if anybody coughed
during that ambush, it exposes your position and the enemy will know you
are there. That enemy will bring hell fire on you or could cause your
death. You are also trained to protect your colleagues to the extent
that if a grenade is thrown at you, you become brave enough to jump over
that grenade to blow yourself to pieces to allow your friends to
escape.
So, what happened that these soldiers mutinied against their General
Officer Commanding? We are not talking about Company Commander,
Platoon Commander and up to Brigade Commander. We are talking about the
highest-ranking officer in the Division, the GOC – a Major General! It
is not funny. So, I will not easily just brush aside their grievances
and condemn them. I must hear from them first. Secondly, were they
trying to understand the gravity of that offence? Like if you do not
know you are doing something wrong. How can somebody judge you wrong for
doing something wrong? If your two-year old child sees a cobra
meandering all over the place, do you think that two-year old would run
away from that cobra? But if you, as an adult, see a cobra, will you
stay? So, it depends on the training and at the same time the
perception. Military men are trained to understand that if
you mutiny, it is punishable with death. You have to make them know
the gravity of the offence they have committed. And if you are
responsible for their welfare, training, operations there and you are
not giving them, how do you hold them responsible?
Are you surprised that the GOC has been retired in the midst of all these?
How can he just be retired like that? Why don’t you put him in the
same category with those officers? That means something went wrong with
him if he was retired. So, why blame the soldiers alone? Why don’t you
put them together to face court martial? You cannot just because he is a
General say he is above that. We had an incident in 1969 in Vietnam
when Lieutenant William Kali, an American, massacred some Vietnamese. He
was brought back to the US and investigated. He was sentenced. There
is nobody who is above the law. Because you are a General doesn’t make
you above the law. You must consider this: that if these soldiers knew
what they did and just took advantage of their number and then insulted
the officer by firing at him, then they were trained to know the
implication, they should not be forgiven.
They should be court-martialed. But the beauty of it is that there
are three different kinds of court martial. There is District Court
Martial. I do not know how they did the General Court Martial because
in our days, there were three different kinds of court martial. We had
District Court Martial, General Court Martial and Field General Court
Martial. District Court Martial is applied only to less than officers,
other ranks. So, how they gave them General Court Martial, I do not
know. It is only when you have mixture of officers and other ranks that
you can conduct General Court Martial; unless they erased the District
Court Martial after I had left. For a soldier, you do not apply General
Court Martial. You apply DCM. And there is a limit to what they can
give. But definitely, the punishment for mutiny is death. So, the
General Court Martial is for everybody. Field General Court Martial is
in only emergency, maybe during war. Then you can on the spot carry out
the General Court Martial if you had to. But in this respect, the normal
thing is that there will be a Judge Advocate and the officers have the
right to object to the President of the Court Martial to call the
officers who are conducting the Court Martial, except the prosecutor.
And they have to adjourn if there are genuine reasons for objecting to
that. And even after they have passed the sentence, they still have to
state these words in sentence: “subject to the approval of appropriate
superior authority.” In this respect, whoever the convener is, whether
the GOC or Chief of Army Staff would have to refer the judgement to
somebody higher than him. That person will now have to send it to
Lawyers in the Department of Legal Services to determine what it is all
about and they can thereafter make recommendations. It has to go to the
Army Council. And the Chairman of the Army Council is the President
himself. If he is not able to go there, he would appoint the Minister of
Defence. Even after this, those sentenced still have the right to
appeal because Court Martial is equivalent to a High Court. They can go
to Court of Appeal and from there to Supreme Court. So, it is not
something that can be carried out immediately.
This issue is related to the fight against terrorism. How do you
see the prosecution of the war against the insurgents, generally?
My experience as a student at the Command and Staff College in 1982
and 1983 should be helpful here. Now it is called Armed Forces Staff
College. I was given a scenario where there is a Nigerian oil rig in the
sea and it was captured by terrorists. In that scenario, I was the
Commanding Officer. I was given a battalion and told to go and
recapture the oil rig. They asked me to make plans for the recovery of
that oil rig. I went to the board with everybody, instructors, chief
instructor, commandant and everybody there. I told them I could not do
it. They were shocked. They thought I was joking.
I said I was not going to do it. The reason I said so was, first of
all, there were some British officers training us at that time. I said
even in Britain, America, Russia, Germany, and in all advanced
countries, this is not a conventional operation. They do not use regular
troops for that. It is a special operation. It needs specially trained
officers and men. Like in Britain they have Special Air Service (SAS) or
Special Boat Service (SBS), which is for underwater operation. In
America, you have the Green Berets as well as the Special Forces, the
Delta Force. We have Spetnez in this other country.
In Germany, you have GSG9. These are special forces for this kind of
operation. Now what we have in Nigeria is insurgency, the highest of
what we call guerilla warfare. Some of us were trained in guerilla
warfare. Nowhere in Nigeria have we units for that purpose. And when
they gave me that task, I told them that this scenario you have painted
here is real. We have the oil rigs and we have tourists. I just told
them so that they could be aware that there was need for training for
that purpose. There was nowhere we were trained for that kind of thing.
You could do it in the classroom and that’s it, but for military, you
must physically go. Even the Special Forces, when they are going to
conduct this kind of operation, they must stage it somewhere. They must
rehearse. Look at what America is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan; look at
what everybody is facing in Syria, Lebanon and Libya. So, it’s not
something you will overrun overnight. Take a look at the balance of
forces, Nigerian Armed Forces on the one hand and the Boko Haram. They
have Libyans and different nationalities and these people are veterans.
They fought in Mali, Somalia, Libya and Iraq. They are still in Libya
and Iraq. So when you saw the movie of how they attacked that Maimalari
Barracks, you saw white men among them.
You heard people say they were being supplied by helicopter at
night. Now, who was doing the supplying and from where were they coming?
So, you do not totally blame the Nigerian soldier for the failure
because it depends on the nation. Have you trained them enough to do the
job they are supposed to do? Have you given them enough motivation? Do
you have enough motivation for them? Do you have medical evacuation at
all levels because if they shoot somebody, there must be field ambulance
and medical doctors. There must be aircraft to take the wounded to
where they will be treated. So, it is not enough to say go and fight
Boko Haram. Some of the recruits you see do not even have boots to
graduate with. Some of my colleagues were commandants there and they
used to invite me to go and watch parades. Some have no boots; so half
of the graduands could not take part in the graduation ceremony.
What then is the problem?
I don’t know. Hear what I am going to tell you now. Here was an
officer from the Finance Corps. Some two, three months ago, he said
their problem was that they had no money. The next day, the Minister of
Finance came on air to say that N130 billion had been released to them
in four months. The next day again, the Ministry of Defence issued a
statement that the money was not channelled through the ministry. It was
direct from the Presidency to the services. Now, that is the mischief
there. Later on, they said it was given to the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.
Gen Ihejirika. Now, if you have a situation where money meant for an
organisation was personalised, instead of you to go through the channel
that it is supposed to be and there are laid down procedures for checks
and balances for contract awards, what level is supposed to approve
what, what the Ministry of Defence, Army Tenders Board and Presidency
can do, the Federal Executive Council can do, if N130 billion vanished
into thin air and nobody can account for it, don’t you think this
country is sleeping or weeping? You have N130 billion given to the Army
alone, yet they claim they have no equipment to fight at the field. They
do not have. The governor said it. The people on ground said it, and
some Senators said there is so much hush, hush. Not only that, two
barracks were attacked, one in Bama and the one in Maiduguri with heavy
casualties. Some aircraft, tanks and artillery pieces were damaged. Some
of the armoured personnel carriers were taken away and then used to
attack the soldiers. And yet none of the service chiefs went there to
see what happened on ground. There was no report of anyone of them
visiting that place. What are they doing in Abuja? You have high-ranking
officers, you have Generals, so many Generals that even in Russia, they
do not have that number of Generals. Yet we are being dealt with,
terrorized. A whole barracks is empty now in Bama. The whole town is a
ghost town. You have Michika, a big town. You have Madagali, another big
town. You have Gwoza where we have the Mobile Police training school,
which this Boko Haram people have taken over. They are now persecuting
people, training them. Maybe some of the 20 policemen that were said to
be missing are being forced to train them. Now you have Gamboru Ngala
and Bama, a big city now in the hands of Boko Haram. And now you have
Konduga, which is between Bama and Maiduguri. When I was 2nd Lieutenant,
I was posted to Maiduguri; then from Maiduguri to Mubi to Bama and back
to Maiduguri. So I know that area like the back of my hand. So, I
wonder how these people came and took over these places. And yet we are
sitting down everyday and saying in the in the papers that we have
killed 100 Boko Haram. You know where Konduga is? It is just a few
kilometres from Maiduguri. They have already overrun these areas with
all the things under their control and the resources available in all
those places, the money, the food and everything, they are carting them
away. So, how do you expect these soldiers who do not have food, who do
not have equipment to go and fight these veterans? The last time we had
war experience was in 1970.
Until four years ago, which soldier was in that Army who fought the
war? Some of these soldiers, their grandfathers were the ones who fought
the war 44 years ago. Some of these soldiers are just 16 and 17 years
old. So how do you expect them to face these people who have war
experience in Libya, Lebanon and everywhere with superior equipment? You
have blacked out communication and these people have communication.
They are using Thuraya satellite phone and whatever communication to
reach their members. You can’t communicate. So what do you do? And you
have this kind of attitude. They just want to cause collateral damage as
much as possible and instill fear into people by slaughtering people
and showing it. When they capture you, they behead you, like they did to
the son of my course mate, Air Vice Marshal Hedima. His son, Wing
Commander Hedima was in his aircraft, overshot the area and it was shot
down.
He bailed out alive and the next thing we heard was that he was
beheaded. And the Boko Haram people said it and nobody denied it. And
this instills fear into people now. And they don’t care because they do
not appear before war tribunals and because they do not also know what
is called Geneva Convention, but the soldiers are subject to the
dictates of the Geneva Convention. That’s what happened to Japanese and
other war criminals. You have propaganda that they also use. Everyday
you find one Shekau or another. While the military says Shekau is dead,
they are saying Shekau is alive. The military are supposed to convince
us that Shekau is dead through military intelligence. First, if Shekau
is dead, where is his body? They said they killed Shekau and his second
in command in Konduga. If you are able to lay that ambush in Konduga,
why don’t you prove to us that you have killed him by showing us his
body? Why don’t you show us the body of Shekau? But after you said you
killed him, somebody looking like Shekau appeared again. What proof
then do you have that you have killed him?
In other words, we are not prosecuting the war on terrorism well?
According to my training and what I know about insurgency and counter
insurgency, we are not doing anything. Maybe now we have planners and
that probably is what has led to the seizure of this aircraft with money
in South Africa. Maybe there is something linked with that. As for the
military, the answer is no. It is beyond perception and understanding.
Now that you have mentioned the South Africa deal, let me ask you
if we are not now heading for contract scandals that may stall the
prosecution of this war against terrorism because now people are talking
about moles in the military and other security arms of government.
Would you say that the alarm about the $9.3 million arms deal is
misleading?
It is not misleading. It is a fact. There are moles. There is no
doubt about that. You interviewed me before and I made reference to
particular individuals. I questioned their service credentials and asked
what business they had coming into the Army. I gave you an example of
one person and said that person lied that he is a General. Now here I am
with my family and I cannot sleep with both eyes closed. Since he took
over as Minister, tell me the statement he has made regarding his plans
to curb the insurgency. So if you are not speaking, it means you are
doing something behind the scene. Unless you are doing something behind
the scene, why are you not speaking? When the Minister of Finance said
she gave N130billion to the army, the first body to speak was the
Ministry of Defence. The Ministry said it was not through them. First,
that is disloyalty. If you have any disagreement with the Minister, you
go to the Minister or the President, not on the pages of newspapers. Go
and tell the President that the Minister did not tell the truth. Who did
she give this money to? But you don’t go and disown her by saying no,
it’s not Ministry of Defence. The implication is that there is a crack
within the system. That’s the role of a mole. And I know who could
possibly do that in the Ministry of Defence.
The present Minister in the Ministry of Defence when he was the
National Security Adviser was running down the Governor of Central Bank
of Nigeria who is now the Emir of Kano. That was the only time he made
public statement when he spoke at a seminar. He ran down the Governor
of CBN and the Chairman of EFCC because these are two sensitive
positions that he has his eyes on. As NSA, he wanted his protégé, one
person who is working for him to take over as Governor of Central Bank.
And he was running down Farida Waziri because he wanted somebody else
there again so that he can now control the EFCC, the Central Bank and
the NSA. So when he came in as Minister of Defence, he was not
performing his job and everyday you hear the office of the NSA has done
this and that. He is targeting the NSA now because he wanted that
position before. He was telling everybody that they were going to make
him NSA.
But the Minister of Defence should not take the blame alone, what
is the NSA doing regarding the insurgency and now people feel that the
NSA and the Minister of Defence have no plans for curbing of this
insurgency. If there is any lapse in the Ministry of Defence, what is he
doing?
You are putting me in a tight corner. I am going to give you the
background of these two officials so that you can make your judgement.
The NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki, everybody knows him to be an upright person.
He is not a dishonest person. There is nowhere in his career where you
find him dishonest. He was well brought up. First, he was brought up by
Sardauna himself, because he is the first son of the former Sultan
Dasuki. Sardauna married his grand aunt. So, he grew up in Sardauna’s
house. So he has very good upbringing. Then, he was later brought up by
his father as his first son. He had the best education you can think of.
He was at the NDA and later went to university in America. He served as
Military Assistant to Chief of Army Staff. So he knows about the Army.
He served as ADC to the President. So, he knows about the Presidency.
But the interesting thing is that when Aliyu Gusau was retired, it was
the same Sambo Dasuki who got Babangida to appoint him NSA. But he is
now throwing spanners in somebody’s job. Surprisingly, Aliyu is married
to Sambo’s younger sister, same father, same mother. This is the irony
of it. But whoever knows Aliyu knows him to be like that. That is why I
will always refer to him as green snake and cobra. You can never be sure
of Aliyu Gusau. He is not from Gusau. He is from Bebeji in Kano. Let’s
get back to the issue of insurgency. Sambo is adviser to the President.
He is not operational. He only coordinates and what he does is get
reports from different organisations. Once he does that, he now collates
them and advises the President. Don’t forget, it’s only the services
that he gets reports from because they are also answerable to the
President. The SSS, NIA, Chief of Army Staff and other military chiefs
answer to the President. The Chief of Army Staff has a Director of
Military Intelligence who reports to him. You have Director of Defence
Intelligence who reports to the Chief of Defence Staff. So, all these
organisations have their own intelligence apparatuses. So the only thing
the NSA to the President does is to collate the information from these
services. He doesn’t have troops. He doesn’t have field officers. Even
his office is staffed by members of these organizations – Army, Navy,
Air Force. So, these are the ones who come to his office. All that he
does is that he signs end users certificates – if anybody is bringing
anything from the military for the purpose of purchasing any military
hardware. This role did not start from his tenure. It has always been
like that. Aliyu Gusau knows it. He did it when he was NSA. It was the
same thing when Sarki Mukhtar was NSA. I was in AS Mukhtar’s office
when he was NSA. Then there was a purchase of something from the Air
Force without the knowledge of Sarki Mukhtar.
But for it to be allowed to come into the country, they needed end
user’s certificate signed by Sarki Mukhtar who was the NSA.
Unfortunately it was not signed by him. Rather it was signed by the
Director of Defence Intelligence.
The airport people refused to authorise this movement because that
was not the correct signature on the document. So, the function of the
NSA is to advise the President. It is left for the President to accept.
He cannot force the President to accept neither can he tell the various
organisations you must do this. He is not in charge of operations. He
will only do something that is directed by the President and sometimes
if something happens within the organisations, he can only ask what
happened. They can then go together and explain to the President.
Somebody is just being mischievous by saying the NSA did this and that
because they know that he doesn’t speak.
There is this feeling by some Nigerians that Boko Haram is the
creation of the North in order to stall Jonathan’s Presidency. Would you
consider that as a fair statement having regards to the situation on
ground?
Boko Haram did not start with Jonathan and so couldn’t have been
created because of President Jonathan. It started in 2002 or thereabout
and that was when Obasanjo was President. Aliyu Gusau was the NSA. That
was when it started. They will go and take over local governments and
the police will harass them. That’s how they started. But the
culmination of it was when these people were in Maiduguri and some of
these governors caused Boko Haram, not because of the President but
because they wanted to use them as weapons against their opponents. Some
of them call them Anti-Kalari, Bakassi Boys and different names. One of
them became a commissioner and Mohammed, their leader was operating in
Maiduguri. How he was killed and what happened later is now in the
public domain. So it was not done because of Jonathan. It started long
before Jonathan and even long before Umaru Yar’Adua. It was gradual and
that’s how it has happened. It started from gradual attitude and they
didn’t care about it. It modified itself and became hydra-headed. That’s
how it happened. If it is because of Jonathan, why should people be
leaving their villages? Who are the people suffering from it now? Are
they the Ijaw people or Christians? The people who are suffering more
are the Muslims. They are taking away their children. Of course some
Christians are there too, but it is a national phenomenon. Who in
Bayelsa is suffering from Boko Haram? People are even accusing
Dokubo-Asari as the one sponsoring Boko Haram.
•To be continued next week
TheSun
As
part of efforts by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the North to
approach the 2015 presidential election as a united front, presidential
aspirants on the platform of the party and other party chieftains met in
Kaduna on Saturday to renew their strategy on how to defeat President
Goodluck Jonathan.
•Kills jubilating residents in Abadam, Dzur •Sect to name Nur as Shekau’s successor
