WITH UCHE NNADOZIE
I have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to relieve his top military chiefs of their jobs several times. I understand that sometimes personnel change may not be the issue, however with a war as intense as this Boko Haram war, shuffling human resource is a critical factor to getting maximum result at the war front. I am not a security expert. But having been in Nigeria for some decades, one can easily predict the natural instinct of a typical Nigerian in the course of duty.
When we are given a responsibility and we seem to have succeeded initially and praised, inertia and hubris immediately sets in. Also our people know and like to sabotage their colleagues a lot. We seem not to like to follow successful bosses to the end. Instead we begin to plot the boss’ downfall. This could be true of what may be happening at the theatre of war and general area presently. Some of the senior officers at the war front may sabotage our war against insurgency by a number of ways. These ways may include but not limited to withdrawal, with holding or diversion of allowances, diversion of ammunition, highhandedness, and poor motivation.
Having done three years or a bit more, I think it is time for the commander-in-chief to retire his service chiefs; may be all of them, or at least three of them. I also think that military intelligence should be overhauled. This activity should go round all the services until it gets to the Department of State Services, DSS. These may be medium term goals but the reforms should begin now. We need to understand the people that make up our military intelligence corps and of course our civil intelligence corps and that of the police. I also think that we need another branch of our military; an elite corps that is trained in infantry, navy and air force operations. This elite corps could have between twenty to forty thousand men and women. The earlier we begin the process of activating this branch the better for us.
In the immediate term, we need to enroll allowances and salaries of our service men and women in the government central payroll system, IPPS. This has become vital following rumours and protest centered on sluggish remuneration even among our men that is at the war front. This kind of thing if it is happening is unfortunate therefore must be curbed as quickly as possible. Weariness may have taken its toll on some of our service chiefs, this sort of mass killing or attack at military bases in and around the theatre of operation has become too frequent to ignore. This kind of attack is not the stage we should be on the quest to rid Nigeria of Boko Haram terrorists.
When attacks such as happened in Melete, Borno state few days ago occurs, then things need to change immediately otherwise something ominous is in the pipeline. I think the terrorists are plotting a very big attack on Nigeria. The resort to attacking military bases, seizing arms and rendering our gallant soldiers useless appear to be a forerunner for an even more daring and deadly attack. For these terrorists who have been forced to the fringes of our border between Chad, Niger and Cameroun shows that they are building up confidence. Soon as they mature in their confidence, it seems they may carry out something similar if not worse than what they used to do four or five or six years ago.
Nevertheless, what happened in Borno state is such a heinous crime against Nigeria. To have our men rounded up in such a manner speaks to the kind of situation that they may be suffering. We understand that their commander, a lieutenant colonel was among the dead. Expectedly, reactions have come from far and wide. Reactions have equally come from politically exposed persons. Some of them are gloating; others are simply out of their minds. In the social media, it is a hell of politics of infamy. Some people say they gloat because this is what the party in power did when they were in the opposition. What ever it is, one thing that must be paramount is that when a country loses her service men, even if it is for a few days, everyone must come together and mourn. It won’t hurt. They die so that we may live. After mourning we may return to our insipid politics.
In the same vain, government or military officials should be and about with information. This incident has not attracted a robust communication strategy. In fact the government has been terribly laid back. This does not mean they haven’t tried to mitigate the issues surrounding the sad occurrence however they have been too slow, too indifference with relation to information dissemination to the larger society. That is pathetic. They can do better. And when they don’t rumour and fake news jumps in to fill official blackout. I am not surprised therefore to see the many conspiracies, inaccurate reporting, out right fabrication of videos and photos to illustrate the killings and the revival of video record of events of several years ago as if it is this event under focus. That is wrong from the purveyors of fake news; it is also wrong from a seemingly indifferent regime.
The National Assembly should go further from cancelling plenary. When events like this occur, the lawmakers must hold a hearing. Agencies that are prosecuting this war and their heads must be called in to give testimony as to what really happened. NASS should get ready to send some of their members to visit with our troops. Let them see first hand how our troops are fairing and see how the government is applying funds allocated for this war. The whole war on terror needs to be overhauled right now. This killing not only affords the opportunity, it confirms that we need to get very serious and decimate this terror group once and for all. The army’s pain is our pain too.
