Why Nigerian Military Can’t Defeat B’Haram, Bandits and Insurgents
Nasir Sambo
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| •Foreign Powers Refused To Sell Arms To Nigeria, Says Lai Mohammed•Incompetence and Leadership Failure are responsible, says Mahdi • Figures Shows Lai Mohammed lied By Mike Odeh James and Maryam Musa Against the backdrop of the Zabarmari killings, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, claimed that Nigeria has remained at the mercy of terrorists because global partners denied attempts by the country to acquire platforms and weapons to fight the terrorists. Even though there were initial claims from both the Army and Airforce of acquiring weapons and warplanes in the last five years of Buhari’s controversial presidency, Lai Mohammed attempted to lay the blame on Nigeria’s inability to defeat Boko Haram and other bandits on the refusal of the international community to sell sophisticated arms to Nigeria. He said “Nigeria has made attempts to acquire better and more effective platforms to deal with terrorists and for one reason or the other, we have been denied these platforms, these weapons and without adequate weapons, without adequate platforms, we remain at the mercy of terrorists.” The Army also came out to say that certain countries were behind the Zabarmari massacre. Evidences gotten from foreign defence analysts, National Bureau For Statistic, Premium Times showed that foreign powers have been arming and framing the Nigerian Military. Premium Times, an online paper, also documented the amount Nigeria had spent in buying weapons. Data from NBS data, it was indicated that in the first half of 2020, Nigeria tripled the amount of cash it spends on arms purchase. The data from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, showed that the country under Buhari spent N115.88 billion on import of arms and ammunition. A breakdown of the imports by years showed that Nigeria spent N786 million in 2015, N142 million in 2016, N233.35 million in 2017, N1.95 billion in 2018 and N12.77 billion in 2019 on imports of arms and ammunition. The first and second quarters, 2020 Foreign Trade Statistics released by the NBS showed that from January to June, 2020, Nigeria spent N54.8 billion on arms and ammunition importation. In October of 2019, an agreement was reached with Nigeria that will have the Russian Federation provide a dozen Mi-35 attack helicopters to assist the Nigerian military in its effort to deal with the Boko Haram insurgency and other regional threats. In 2017, Nigeria’s military took delivery of VT-4 main battle tanks, SH-5 self-propelled howitzers and other equipment from China in an effort to strengthen its land forces. The equipment was acquired from China’s Norinco after being ordered last year at the cost of $152 million contract. The equipment was unloaded on 8 April and included VT-4 main battle tanks, SH5 105 mm self-propelled artillery and other items. Nigerian Army Chief of Policy and Plans, Lieutenant General Lamidi Adeosun, said “The process of acquiring this has been on for some time but thank God they are coming in now. From this, you can see how serious the Federal Government of Nigeria is in making sure that the Nigerian Army is not only equipped, but contains problem of insecurity we are having across the country. In 2018, after President Buhari’s historic visit to the US, Nigeria paid the United States government $496 million for the acquisition of 12 Super Tucano fighter jets to be used by the Nigerian Air Force. Over the past five years, figures from the Nigeria Air Force showed that 23 brand new Helicopters, including MI-171E Helicopters, were added to Nigeria’s war chest. Similarly, Americans and British Special forces have been training Nigerian Military on how to combat terrorism. Thus it is not totally correct that foreign powers denied Nigeria the much needed arms to fight Boko Haram as being alluded to by Lai Mohammed; neither is it true that countries are sponsoring Boko Haram in order to balkanize Nigeria. WHY CAN’T NIGERIA DEFEAT BOKO HARAM? Despite numerous declarations of victory by President Buhari and his ministers that Boko Haram has been significantly degraded, the Jihadist sect and its breakaway faction continues to slaughter soldiers and citizens across Northeastern Nigeria. The persistent attacks in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa have left over 11,000 people dead and roughly 2.5m displaced. It has also cost Africa’s largest economy, and its biggest crude oil producer, as much as $9bn according to the army’s top commander, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai. Abdulrazaq Namdas, who is the Chairman House Committee on Army, believes that the inability of the Nigerian Security Forces to defeat Boko Haram and other insurgency stem from the lack of coordination between all the arms of the security. According to Namdas, “The Army was ready to contain banditry and Boko Haram but the Army cannot do it alone, the police cannot do it alone and the Air Force cannot do it alone. There is a problem of synergy and cooperation between all the arms of the security forces. “The Intelligence arm of the security is not supplying the Army with the needed information to tackle the insecurity. I expect the intelligence gathering agency to be very up to date to be able to predict what the insurgents would do,” he added. Eze Onyekpere, who heads an Abuja think tank on security, seems to agree with Hon. Namdas. Eze said “It appears to be a lack of co-ordination — someone will attack a military compound and for two or three hours the battle is raging and no one coming to support them,” he says. “Where is the air force? How is it that Boko Haram can travel tens of kilometres and sneak up on a military base?” Both Eze and Namdas are of the opinion that all arms of the military must cooperate closely if insecurity in whatever guise must be obliterated. For Group Captain Sadiq Shehu, Adjunct Professor at George C Marshall European Centre For Security Matters, Germany, he sees it in terms of manpower and boots. Group Captain Shehu opined that the Nigerian military is stretched to limit and so cannot effectively tackle Boko Haram, banditry and Fulani Herdsmen cum Farmers clashes. Data, however, supports Shehu’s assertion of an overstretched military confronting numerous crises at the same time. Nigeria with a population of 210 million has about 250,000 men under arms facing security crises across Nigeria, from banditry in the North-west to brutal farmer-herder clashes in the middle belt to militants in the oil-rich southern Delta region. Most of the soldiers are also deployed in internal policing in at least 30 States of the 36. The Adjunct Professor has advocated for massive recruitment into Nigeria Army, Air force, Navy and Police to meet the security challenges confronting the nation. Another factor militating against the military in its crusade against insurgency, banditry and other vices is low moral which stemmed from soldiers feeling shortchanged by their Generals. Most of the ranks and files of the armed forces would complain that their commandants at the higher level are deliberately underfunding the military and not buying the needed equipments to pulverize the enemies. An Army General was court marshaled for complaining that Army personnel are deliberately being under equipped. General Adeniyi was therefore ordered to be demoted by at least three years. His orderly, Tokunbo Obanla, a private, was found guilty and sentenced to 28 days in jail with hard labour. The Nigerian Army had in July ordered Mr Adeniyi to face court-martial, four months after he was seen in a rare video confessing that Nigerian troops were being outgunned by Boko Haram terrorists. Mr Adeniyi was leading a large troop of soldiers on a special operation when they came under heavy attacks by Boko Haram. Dr. Shehu Mahdii of Dialogue Group had in the past accused the State and the Army boss of conniving to shortchange the state of N54 billion. This money, according to Group Captain Shehu, Nigeria spends only 3 percent of her budget on military which is grossly inadequate. The former military officer said that Nigeria is not spending enough to purchase weapons as a country which is in a war situation is supposed to. “In 2020 budget, the capital for the Army was N34 billion and in 2021 the budget was reduced to N27 billion” According to Namdas, “the N27 billion would be used in building barracks, buying arms and equipments, renovating existing equipments. “In view of Nigeria’s surmounting crisis, these monies are inadequate”, he added. Most Nigerians, in view of the abysmal performances of the military in tackling the security challenges in the country and against the fact that after five years of nonperformance are of the opinion that the Army, Naval, Air Force, Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of Defence should retire or be sacked so that fresh ideas can be imputed into the fight against insurgency. Members of the National Assembly, religious leaders and public opinion leaders have called on the President to relieve the service chiefs of their posts, while rejigging the top military echelon, but the President Buhari has so far refused such calls. DESERT HERALD reports that as per as fighting insurgency or terrorism is concerned, Buhari’s Presidency is still not in touch with the reality of handling such challenges as military efforts alone even from the most advance armies in the world cannot and have never defeat terrorism or the ideology of extremism any where in the world. In a country where economic policies promotes and generates poverty, unemployment and hunger, a country where corruption is unprecedented and massively on the increase, there is no amount of military efforts that can stop vulnerable youths from going into acts of crimes and criminality. Experts including the founder of Microsoft, Mr. Bill Gates have for long advised the Buhari Presidency to check increasing corruption in the system, impunity and corrupt enrichment by top government appointees and family members of the President and to invest more in human development and empowerment.  ReplyForward |
