Writing on why the Chief of Defense Staff should have resigned even if the president refused to sack him for the security mess in the northern part of Nigeria, Joe Onwu wrote: “On the 1st of October 2014, the United States Secret Service Director, Julia Pierson, the first woman to lead the agency whose duty is to protect the president, his family, the vice president and former presidents, resigned amid mounting criticism over series of security lapses, the major one was a breach on 19th September 2014 when an armed man climbed over the White House fence and made it deep into the executive mansion before being stopped. In her words: "I think it’s the best interest of the secret service if I step down, congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency, it’s painful to leave as the agency is reeling from a significant security breach". That's a society where human beings respects the sanctity of their institutions, they take responsibility in any breach in their security, apologise and resign, but here in Nigeria, any breach in security lapse is a conspiracy theory. It is embarrassing to see our soldiers fleeing without firing a shot and abandoning their barracks whenever they are under attack. It hurts whenever I read or watch how innocent children, women, men are displaced and killed almost on daily basis in the North East. How do our service chiefs, et al, feel when they hear such news? Nobody or group of persons should be allowed to inflict pains and take over some parts of our country, it is the duty of our government to take care of her citizens and defend its territory against external or internal invasion.
It is only in Nigeria that the criteria for national honours to our service chiefs and other top security chiefs is just by the virtue of their offices not the impact or what they contributed in curbing insurgency and other security challenges. CDS Air Marshal Alex Badeh, Lt General Kenneth Minimah, IGP Suleiman Abba, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and other service chiefs should be grateful to democracy, it is in our democracy that a rag tag terrorist group like Boko Haram will take over a battalion, capture some territories in our country, declare the captured territories their caliphate and nothing will happen, if it were in the military era, some of our service chiefs, both the retired and active ones, would either have been in jail or dead for such security lapses. What is happening now in our polity is what you get when you sacrifice credibility on the altar of sentiments, favouritism and ethnicity. Until our service chiefs, politicians, law makers, political appointees, etc. starts to pursue the interest of Nigeria over their selfish interest, accepting responsibilities for their own negligence, we may never get it right in this country. Air Marshal Alex Badeh has been humbled by the latest turn of events, who will he blame this time for the capture of his home town? The moles in the Nigerian Armed Forces he described as "Fifth Columnist" or the soldiers he said deserves to die for constructive mutiny against their officers?”
The war against insurgency has lingered because of sabotage that is being perpetrated mostly by people of northern Nigerian extraction. The President, on Friday, December 12, lamented that the Federal Government’s efforts to tackle insecurity in some parts of the country were been frustrated by what he described as ‘internal and external sabotage’. Hear him: “One of our greatest challenges is this insecurity. We have our frustrations, we have issues of sabotage: internal and external, but we are working very hard and by the grace of God, we will overcome”. Many northerners are the ones sabotaging all efforts to win the war against insurgency, and still they will turn around to blame the president .The security threats besetting the country are more dreadful in the north; so the president did the right thing by appointing persons of northern extraction into the military hierarchy so that they would be more energized to confront the terrorists rampaging within their own “backyard”. What else can a President do when the Chief of defense Staff; Chief of Naval Staff; Minister of Defense; National Security Adviser; Inspector General of Police; Comptrollers Of Immigration and Customs are all northerners? In addition, almost all the military commanders facing the insurgents with their troops in the north, who are running away with their troops, are persons of northern Nigerian extraction. Remember that the Defence Headquarters’ top military command placed five army commanders under arrest for desertion during active duty in Adamawa State when the town of Mubi was attacked by Boko Haram insurgents. Mubi which had three army battalions before the attack was easily captured by the insurgents as the soldiers on deployment in the area abandoned their posts and fled along with civilians into neighboring villages, which made the task of overrunning the town all the more easy for the terrorists. According Saharareporters, the five commanders were cuffed and detained at the military police guard room at the 23 Brigade Headquarters in Yola, Adamawa State. The names of two of the arrested commanders were given as Colonel Ibrahim and Lt. Colonel Magaji, while the remaining three were not named. They were said to have abandoned the 213 Brigade Headquarters a few minutes after Boko Haram militants reached Mararaba and Hildi in the outskirts of Mubi. Newsday also wrote that another group of army Generals from the 234 battalion will be arrested as soon as they are discharged from the military hospital in Yola where they are receiving treatment for injuries sustained during the escape. In recent months, there have been reported cases of soldiers resorting to various means of avoiding deployment to areas controlled by the Islamic sect, with some resorting to using their own weapon on themselves as a way to avoid deployment.
President Jonathan gave most of the security posts to people of northern Nigerian extraction. What else can he do, if those appointees cannot help, most of all, keep their own region and people safe? Apart from laying false claim to the presidency as their “birthright”, the north also sees the leadership of the military and para-military agencies as their birthright and would always want to have those positions. President Jonathan acquiesced to that by giving them almost all those positions, and still, not much has changed in the war against insurgency ravaging the northern part of Nigeria. Since independence, the military and para-military leadership positions have been held by persons of northern Nigerian Muslim extraction about 80 percent of the time. Three quarter of officers and men of the Nigerian military and para-military agencies are people of northern Nigerian extraction, as recruitment, into the various cadres of those agencies, are based on quota system. This was what Abdulbaqi Jari of University of Sokoto wrote with the title “Northerners to the rescue on insecurity” (verbatim):
“SIR: Nigeria is now facing her greatest challenges since its creation 100 years ago. The conquest of Northern Nigeria in 1903, the Nigerian civil war, and post-election violence of 2011 combined are no match to the unprecedented challenges that northern Nigeria, and indeed Nigeria is facing now. Especially, the insecurity challenge, corruption, looting of public funds and complete breakdown of morality, law and order.The northern Nigeria is the embattled region at present. But looking critically at all the security agencies and their heads, one will be surprised, baffled, and confused on why insurgency is still thriving in Northern Nigeria as virtually all the heads of security agencies in Nigeria are northerners. The Chief of Defence Staff is from Adamawa State, the National Security Adviser from Sokoto, Minister of Defence from Zamfara, Minister of Internal Affairs from Benue, IG of Police from Jigawa State, Dikko Inde of Customs Service from Katsina, Immigration Controller, etc. But what is happening? Even though the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is not from the north, "one tree cannot make a forest". Why is insurgency thriving in Nigeria? Is it that these people are not concerned? Or is it that the North and what happens in it do not move them?
The recent occupation of more Nigerian lands brings out the conspiracy theories. Is it that Nigeria is under attack from within or from outside? There are insinuations that Islam is the target of the conspiracies. But some of the security heads are Muslims. There are other important Muslim leaders like four former heads of state, the Sultan and other Muslim organizations like JNI and JIBWIS, is the development something they can do about. The impounded plane (cash courier for arms) in South Africa may be a legitimate reason for anybody to suspect that. But why will someone sponsor another person to kill? All hands should be on deck to find a lasting solution to this crisis, to secure the future of Nigeria after 2015 elections, that is also to the peace of Nigeria, ECOWAS, and indeed the whole of Africa”.
The north claims that it has more people than the south as such has more states than the south, and for that reason, more officers and men in the military and para-military agencies. Since independence, about 54 years ago, the leadership of Nigeria has been held by persons of northern Nigerian Muslim extraction for about 38 years, and still, the north have not much to show for it, showing that leadership position, the northern lords are clamoring for, doesn’t necessarily translate to the development and economic well being of the area that produced the leader, if there’s no concerted effort to match rhetoric with actions. The northern persons who have held the leadership position of Nigeria at one time or the other did not only fail Nigeria but also their own region as today’s north is worse off than the other regions despite the fact that persons of northern Nigerian Muslim extraction have ruled Nigeria for 38 years out of 54. Infact, northern Nigeria has received better attention during President Jonathan’s watch than it did during the time one of its sons were at the helm of affairs in Nigeria. And still, the north wants one of the dunces it has produced in abundance to rule Nigeria more and more.
Rather, what the north should be clamoring for should be the election of a better leader, no matter where such person comes from, as a clear fact is that northern Nigeria profited more from the leadership of non-northerners than from the leadership of persons of northern Nigerian Muslim extraction. The point is that the selfish northern elite should allow the emergence of the best from anywhere rather than insisting only on a northerner who will do little or nothing for their region in particular and for Nigeria in general. The northerners, who are bent on seeing power go back to its “base”, are doing so due to greed and selfishness because of the oil in the south. A northern-based human rights activist, Malam Shehu Sani, on Sunday October 12, 2014, said the North would soon drift into disaster if it continued to depend on the proceeds from oil from the Niger Delta region for its economic survival. He lamented that the northern state governments had not been able to pay salaries of workers without the proceeds from the monthly federal allocation. He also said that 2015 should be a year for change in the northern region. Addressing pensioners of the Nigerian Railway Corporation at the Kaduna Railway Junction, Sani, who is also the president of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, argued that commoners in the region would continue to wallow in perpetual slavery if they failed to resist money politics and vote credible persons into leadership positions in the region. Hear him: "Time has passed that northern states will continue to survive on Niger Delta's oil money; our states are bereft of any idea that will generate revenue to run our affairs. There is no single state in the North that can pay one month salaries without federal allocation. And federal allocation is derived from the sale of Niger Delta oil; this is dangerous and a disaster in the future. Is it possible for someone to be feeding you without controlling you? Our visionary leaders like the late Sir Ahmadu Bello foresee all these dangers, yet our leaders betrayed the course of common good. If today Nigeria is split, the North is in danger. We must resist money politics and ensure that only credible people are elected, we must protect our votes, we are only number one in population. We have highest number of senators, governors, local governments, councillors but we have the highest numbers of beggars and oppressed citizens."
Everybody is saying that the Nigerian military can’t perform again, but, have we asked why? Since a northern military president disarmed the armed forces, the military has not recovered and can’t protect Nigerians and their property again. As ThisDay noted, the Nigerian military became incapable following a failed coup against General Babangida. And following the failed coup, the command and control of the army decided, as it were, to disarm the army so that they will not able to take on the political leadership of the military at the time. We heard some of our helicopters were even given out to Congo and other countries, so that the army would not have the weapons. Since then, the army has not been equipped. So is it a question of lack of equipment, a question of will and that of rot over the years? According to the Sun, the former Emir of Gwandu, Alhaji Al-Mustapha Haruna Jokolo, a retired Major and former Aide-de-camp to former Head of State General Muhammad Buhari, expressed deep concern over the state of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Jokolo x-rayed the pitiable situation of the Nigerian Armed Forces and expressed strong reservation about the way the finances of the armed services had been handled resulting in the rot that caused extensive demoralization of the troops, poor discipline and deep decline in welfare. The outspoken officer who had a distinguished career in the military said he was 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. So, you do not totally blame the Nigerian soldier for the failure because it depends on the nation. Jokolo asked: “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. You have N130 billion given to the Army alone, yet they claim they have no equipment to fight at the field. Not only that; the military hierarchy does not care about what is going on in the war theatre! 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”. Who is to be blamed? The President or the military hierarchy that is replete largely with people of northern Nigerian extraction?
That the Nigerian military has failed so far due to low morale, no weapons and wherewithal to fight the terrorists shouldn’t be blamed on Jonathan alone as successive military top brass and their cohorts made away with the fund meant for the equipment of the military. It’s unbelievable that the military has no equipment despite the fact that it takes the largest chunk of Nigeria’s yearly budget. Obi Nwakanma asked:” Now, where did all those billions in National Defence budgets over the years go? Nigerians will not remember even as Olatunji Dare has let us know last week in his column in the Nation that for years as Babangida's Defence minister, Sani Abacha "chopped" money budgeted for military equipment, or that even the last President, Obasanjo, systematically defanged the Armed Forces, and that Jonathan inherited a very skeletal and operationally weak force - ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-motivated. Nigerians will only remember that under his uncertain, and rather wishy-washy national defence and security policy, Boko Haram became uncontainable”. Richard Sole, a U.S. Government consultant and author of the book "A Ritual of the Monkey" wrote that Nigeria budgets $3 billion annually on defense, however, New York Times report that many of allocation is skimmed off at the top and little is left for equipment. Just weeks ago, soldiers of the newly created 7th Division mutinied against the General officer commanding the division nearly killing the GOC. Alice Friend the Pentagon's senior policy official for Africa was quoted on Thursday May 15th 2014 as saying that "The Nigerian army's 7th Division, deployed against the insurgency in the country's north, "has recently shown signs of real fear. They do not have the capabilities, the training or the equipping that Boko Haram does. The Islamic insurgency is increasingly taking on the military in direct fighting, and "is exceptionally brutal and indiscriminate in their attacks." As a result, "we are now looking at a military force that is, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage. The Nigerian military has the same challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does. Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off the top, if you will."
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