Nigeria Times

By Imamudeen Abba

Two persons have governed Borno since the advent of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. Ali Modu Sheriff and Kashim Shettima who governed the state within the period, used different approaches in tackling the menace though they also have their faults.

While Sheriff can be accused of not taking the necessary steps that would have nipped the Boko Haram scourge in the bud, his approach in handling the issues definitely did not exacerbate the security situation in the state.

If anything, he cooperated fully with the federal troops which enabled the Yar’adua administration to clamp down on the terrorists that led to the capture of their leader, Mohammed Yusuf and made them go underground for more than two years.

Shettima on the other hand handled the matter with maturity and also cooperated fully with the military, though he at one time alleged that the terrorists were more equipped than the military.

But his comments which caused uproar then, showed sympathy to the troops as he was only wishing they had more weapons to fight the terrorists with. But the current governor of Borno State, Prof. Babagana Zulum who has the benefit of learning from the experiences of his predecessors, seem not ready to do that as he seems more absorbed with playing to the gallery.

Prof. Zulum, unlike Sheriff and Shettima, who would rather be discreet and allow the military to do the talking about the security situation in the state, has become loquacious, using every platform and occasion to go gibberish about security issues

He has done that one time too many that he is beginning to sound like a broken record talking from both sides of the mouth. This is a complete departure from the norm in security circles where discretion is seen as the better part of valour. Worse still, his stock in trade has been to openly accuse the military of one act infraction or the other.

This has gone on for some time that many are beginning to suspect his public outing on security issues.

His first major gaffe was in January when he accosted military men on check point duties and accused them of extorting travellers. He drew his conclusions based on hearsay without giving the military the benefit of fair hearing.

Days after he made that blunder, the Maiduguri- Damaturu road, which used to be the safest in the state became impassable as the military not wanting to be seen as benefiting from check points as accused by the governor, momentarily withdrew. He was later to apologise saying the swiftness with which the army announced readiness to immediately investigate conducts involving stop and search of passengers in Maiduguri was commendable.

He said the speedy response from the army headquarters only reaffirms what every Nigerian already knows about the exceptional leadership credentials of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, and many others that have done so much for Borno and Nigeria. But before the apology, many hapless travellers have fallen victims of the insurgents.

About a month later when there was an attack on Auno, near Maiduguri, Zulum accused soldiers of abandoning residents at the mercy of Boko Haram insurgents alleging further that soldiers meant to secure the community desert the people around 5pm on a daily basis. The military replied that the troops were conducting clearance operation at other locations when the attack happened and that it will not deliberately allow people to be killed by insurgents. But by then, the harm has been done.

Zulum seems to have a different understanding of his role as the chief security officer of the state as he interprets that to mean he must be in confrontation with the military. Before Zulum became governor, the military had dome excellently well in its field operations recapturing 11 local governments hitherto captured and placed under the authority of the insurgents.

The military had also killed a vast number of the insurgents making many of them to flee to other countries. It was the sustained efforts of the military that made it possible for elections to take in place in Borno state and for Zulum to be elected governor. Even after Zulum became governor, the military did not relent in its efforts

When the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Tukur Yusufu Buratai relocated to the Northeast in April, Nigerian troops within a short time were able to sustain repeated onslaught against the terrorists.

Between April and July when the Chief of army Staff went to present reports to the President, the military had killed over 1400 of the insurgents including not less than 20 of their top commanders while many of their informants were arrested.

Many of the terrorists also surrendered having come under superior fire power. The height of the victory was when the Boko Haram leader was heard crying in an audio message about how he and his men have been overwhelmed by the troops.

But the Zulum vituperations undermines all that. It portrays the military as lacking in discipline and professionalism that a civilian had to be the one intervening to remind them of how to go about doing their jobs. For instance, the governor has even threatened that after Sallah that he is going back to Kukawa and that if the military are not ready that he will use hunters. He said, “After Sallah, we will go back to Kukawa. We will give time to the military; but if they will not clear Baga, we will mobilise our hunters and vigilantes to recapture Baga… we can’t continue like this. People have taken their destiny in their hands.”

This is mere playing to the gallery as everybody knows that hunters lack the sophistication to engage terrorists.

Such comments from the governor are totally unnecessary and amount to asking the people to ignore the military and take laws into their hands.

Such statements should not come from a governor who has sworn an oath to defend the constitution.

Abba wrote this piece from Maiduguri.

By Sani Muhamamdu

The seeming recent castigation of the military by Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum has revived new posers in Nigeria’s grapple with terrorism. That poser is: who is the Nigeria military fighting in its anti-terrorism war? The answer to this poser would be instructive in how Boko Haram’s campaign of terror would be ended.

The Borno State Governor’s convoy had come under attack from gunmen as he made his way to go distribute relief materials in a part of the state. The jury is still out as to whether that attack was the handwork of Boko Haram or something more insidious that could herald new variables in the security breaches that are plaguing the Lake Chad Basin.

If these new variables do arise, they will not be quite new in the sense that the people of Borno state and environ are no strangers to treachery from people who should ordinarily protect them by virtue of the responsibility imposed by their office. These leaders however turn around to be the very thorn in the flesh of their constituents. Scholars have traced the root of Boko Haram to the political class, which empowered fanatical hoodlums to advance their political fortunes; they engaged in treacherous acts like promising the strict implementation of Sharia code to impassioned youth just so that they can use these urchins to deal with political opponents, something that is not quite possible in a country governed by a secular constitution, only to walk back on the same promise when they have gained office.

It bears mentioning that opportunities were lost to tame the genie that was set free from the bottle in the early days of Boko Haram. Rather than owning up to the crime they have committed in producing the conditions that created the terrorists, politicians in Borno misled the whole of Nigeria until the terror group was born. Latter efforts by the military and security agencies to clear the state of these criminal met with all manners of resistance. Some of these politicians went as far as providing shelter for wanted Boko Haram members and this is not forgetting that under the previous administration, the political class in Borno state freed scores of high-profile terrorists by simply citing orders from above whenever troops arrested them.

The tantrum thrown by Governor Zulum is therefore worrisome because it flags other prospects in the nation’s anti-terrorism war. Just who is the Nigerian Army, the entire military, fighting in Nigeria’s northeast? This question is pertinent because there is more than meets the eye if the governor of Borno state is the one verbally, and even actively, putting the military down for terrorists. It raises the possibility that while the officers and men of the Nigerian Army and the other military branches are patriotically laying down their lives to defeat Boko Haram, politicians, with some as high ranking as the governor, are actually interested in sustaining the insurgency. Only such interest will make Governor Zulum diss the military to the point where he thinks local hunters could do the job.

Whatever support Governor Zulum plans to give local hunters to protect his state from terrorists would certainly lead to the total eradication of Boko Haram if same is extended to the Nigerian military. A quick note here is that support in this sense does not refer to buying Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), feeding allowance or mundane material support because giving those to hunters will not yield much. One can safely infer that the kind of support that Zulum has in mind when he mentioned hunters as alternatives will involve rallying the traditional and religious institutions behind them in addition to rapidly rebuilding communities so that the people will have the sense of purpose that will empower them to reorganize into societies that will contribute to defeating the insurgency.

But Zulum is not doing any of these in support of the government troops, rather he is pursuing an agenda that has all the markings of being inimical to the collective desire for peace by Nigerians. His attempt to set the troops up by crying about sabotage in the military when he is not the President or the Chief of Army Staff smells foul. It shows that something is wrong and curiously it appears he was given a script to act by those that have decided against the run of play that the service chief must leave office on the erroneous impression that they must be converted into civil servants, a position that has now been dismissed by better informed Nigerians.

The politicization of the terrorist activities in Borno state has taken a dangerous direction in that the politicians have become vociferous in attacking the military even when it is apparent that is they who need lessons in patriotism because if there is anyone that wants the crisis to continue it is Borno politicians with their associates and not a patriotic military. The extent to which they have thrown caution to the wind is such that one of them, Zullum’s cabinet member went on record to accuse that the the military is in Baga to trade in fish. While nothing can be farther from the truth than this, the damage is nonetheless done because the local population will withhold support from the military on account of spurious tales like this. It seems Governor Zulum’s outburst was not a spontaneous reaction but something that has been rehearsed to further sour relations between the local population and the military. He will have to prove that he did what he did without malice.

Even when malice has been ruled out for Zulum, his associates and the political class in the state, it becomes necessary to interrogate if and how they benefit from the insurgency. At the start of the insurgency, the political class had hired these terrorists to snuff the life out of opponents, they had used their “boys” to commit copycat opportunistic crimes that were attributed to terrorists, politicians have benefitted from violence keeping people away from voting so that they can win elections in which they are not popular, they have gained from collecting allocations that they not have to account for since they can use Boko Haram violence as justification for not executing contracts for which they and their cronies have taken money. None of these political criminalities diminished under Zulum, who may now be aiming to worsen the insurgency so that the political class of that state may further rape its treasury. Maybe unknowingly, the governor is caving into a political class that prefer that the state continue to remain in perpetual chaos than the peace which the military has continued to fight to gift Nigerians.

Unfortunately, this same military is now being accused of sabotaging government’s efforts in Borno State. One would be right to ask, “what efforts?” Can Zulum show his administration’s blueprint towards ending the insurgency? He should ask the neighbouring states what they did to make their states unattractive to Boko Haram terrorists. He should think of calling for a summit of Borno sons and daughters to debate the issues.

The Governor cannot take such proactive step as long as he continues to fraternize with Borno’s political class, the cause of the problem and fuel that has kept its fire burning. For him to marshal the bravery needed for such shift he must first stop his predisposition to blame game and addiction to lamentation. Borno might have been suffering for long but the solution lies within Zulum’s grasp alongside his associates in the state. Additionally, he must accept that the military, other security agencies and the Civilian JTF alone cannot solve the problem. There must be leadership and public mobilization against the Boko Haram terrorists and that is where he comes in as the Governor, in whom the electorate have entrusted the mandate to restore their lives to normalcy.

For the sake of the people of Borno state and families that have borne the brunt of the insurgency, let us all hope that Zulum does not get his wish of having the military leave Borno state for him and his hunters. Should that happen, Zulum will not have the luxury of staging an attack on himself because the beasts that the political class of his state has reared will tear him to shreds.

What the Governor should do is to play his own part, which includes learning to keep quiet and shun theatrics while calling his associates to order so that the military will know what enemies it is fighting on behalf of the nation.

Muhammadu is a public affairs analyst and wrote this piece from Abuja.

By David Onmeje

The reality in Nigeria on improved security does not need crystalline lens to have a clear sight. Never mind those whose minds are fixated on pulsating or celebrating the odd and the petrifying, which comes erratically for a country adroitly fixing its various insecurity challenges amid schemes of sabs.

But the value of truth cannot be diminished by the media hype of opposition elements, scattered everywhere in the system and only concerned about permutations on how to grab power in the next political dispensation. No one blames them because leadership or power is not donated on a platter of gold to anyone. It is a rough field and all arsenals are recruited either for triumph or defeat of either side of the actors on the turf.

Mindless of the entanglements on field of powerplay, but truth is always visible and palpable enough, in spite of the evil gang-up against it. The Commander-In-Chief (C-in-C) of the Armed Forces of any nation is a serious personality by every rating, whether biased or objective. He holds the ace and accepts every liability or asset in the aftermath.

The C-in-C’s physiognomy is immaterial in the political and security leadership of a nation he bears the nightmarish burden of offering to his people. He is the receptor of everything. He takes credit for good or bad as long as he reigns.

It explains President Muhammadu Buhari’s reasons for painstakingly dedicating of time to carefully scrutinize and appoint capable lieutenants to assist him in the arduous task of governing a complex country like Nigeria. In Nigeria, at least one thing is expressively eloquent enough for all ears. President Buhari, as the C-in-C made no mistakes in selecting his appointees’, especially Service Chiefs. Security is a pivotal component of government in any country globally.

A fortified Armed Forces are the primary strength of any nation. When countries like Israel, America, Russia, Germany, China, Great Britain and several other world powers roar at external aggressors harshly- the countries which threaten their sovereignty and territorial integrity, its because of the might of their Military. The world has never at any time been immune from troubles. It is prophetic and historical.

President Buhari did Nigerians a lot of good which has remained unsung. When Buhari became the democratic leader of Nigeria in 2015, he met a degenerated, polarized, politicized, under equipped, poorly motivated, under-staffed, under-trained and an archaic Military. Nigeria had the infamous chaunt of operating a Military which ducked in the battlefield in the face of menacing enemies.

Boko Harm and other insurgency sects held Nigerians captive in their country and homes for years, right into Abuja. Aware of this situation, what President Buhari never failed his conscience about the leadership Nigerians entrusted to him from the outset was to appoint competent, loyal, patriotic and trusted team of senior Military officers to head the various arms of the nation’s Armed Forces.

The President wanted a total overhaul of the security architecture of the country. It was avoidably the first tonic he discovered as imperative to inject into the Nigerian Military. He allowed the Service Chiefs he inherited to function for nearly two months (May 29 – July 15, 2015) to weigh their performance before taking a decision. If they were truly good, but frustrated by the preceding administration, Buhari was prepared to retain them. He would never have sacked them.

President Buhari gave them the tools and liberty to operate freely for nearly two months. But he didn’t get the required results. Quite disturbed, he relieved these Nigerians of their appointments; thanked them for service to the nation and crowned new Service Chiefs with a specific mandate- to end terrorism in the country as soon as possible.

And among them, a crack professional soldier, patriotic, loyal and a no-nonsense Army General, already used to terrorism warfare, who was serving as Commander of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai was appointed COAS and leader of counter-insurgency operations in Nigeria. It was the genesis of the relocation of Military Chiefs to the theatre of war in Maiduguri, Northeast of Nigeria in compliance with a presidential order.

The insecurity in the region immediately resolved itself because serious senior Military personnel, who are conversant with the asymmetrical style of terrorists’ wars took charge in obedient response to the presidential directive. A lot of gains have been made. The wanton destruction of lives and properties by the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria has been reduced by at least, 90 percent, even with their bolstered strength by ISWAP.

Today, when some Nigerians malevolently fault the Service Chiefs and playout games to compel President to drop these Military assets to Nigeria for flimsy excuses such as “incompetence,” the President just laughs himself out. It is because he is yet to see where they failed Nigeria or the best to replace them now to effectively dispense results and stick to the earlier stated qualities, especially, loyalty and patriotism. The current internal struggles for leadership in the Military confirms this fear.

Its normal that some Nigerians are sometimes forgetful. The person leading counter-insurgency operations in Nigeria is President Buhari and not the Service Chiefs. The President who has a clearer and better knowledge of the operations of the Military in warfare, knows his Service Chiefs have not disappointed him or the country on this sensitive national assignment and its spiraling into other insurgencies most Nigerians can’t even rehearse in haste. With someone else on Buhari’s seat, it would have been worse for Nigeria.

Whether desperate political power seekers inflaming or aggravating the insecurity problems appreciate it or not, the evidence is palpable or unalterable. And those who for various reasons deny it openly, still admit it in their secret and reflective moments.
Beneficiaries of this insecurity breather as necessitated by President Buhari are also chorusing songs of praise to the Military every day. The journey started quite far and President Buhari prepared for it. He has kept watering the pipe of Military empowerment for excellence in Nigeria.

Under President Buhari, the Nigerian Armed Forces have not botched on security as often irreligiously echoed sentimentally. The brave officers, personnel, men and women of the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Army have all been retrained, adequately equipped and properly motivated for the job. And the morale has ever been high, among air, water or the ground troops of Nigeria.

A combination of these Military personnel constitute the troops cracking the swampy Lake Chad Basin area in final Clearance Operations. It is exactly the last battle ground between Nigeria and the enemy forces of Boko Haram/ ISWAP terrorists.

And as the Nigerian Military expend weapons every day on the battlefield battling insurgents, so also President Buhari ensures that Military armoury is consistently replenished. It is what has made the Military of other nations like the USA, Great Britain, Russia, China and Germany thick and proud in defending their countries. Nigerian Military is at their doorstep now.

However, anywhere in the world, the Army is the largest and biggest component of the Military. They are the first fighters deployed to the field in the event of a sudden outbreak of war. And the Army is also the last to end field battles with enemy forces. President Buhari, a retired soldier himself realises it; what many Nigerians failed to decode.

Therefore, his anointment and support of a knowledgeable Military expert like Gen. Buratai as COAS and leader of counter-insurgencies in Nigeria has paid off handsomely. The Army Chief has repositioned the Army to accept, absorb, deflate, dismantle and effectively tackle all the insecurity challenges of Nigeria staunchly. Nigerian soldiers now are not just brave, courageous and resilient, but excitedly execute the manifold tasks at the frontlines with Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists.

But it has come through months and years of strategic planning and prudent application of resources. Gen. Buratai has revived the Nigerian Army to levels where it is confirmatory that not every fighting weapon troops need in the warfront with the latest touch of technological innovations is acquired externally or imported, but fabricated locally. Hitherto moribund Army institutions like Nigerian Army School of Artillery, et al and training institutions like the Nigerian Army University at Biu and the Nigerian Army Aviation School and others, with widely acclaimed world class infrastructures attests to Gen. Buratai’s epochal leadership of the Army.

Beyond these achievements, Gen. Buratai has ensured the return of accountability, probity and transparency to the Nigerian Army through various innovations and reforms championed by the C-in-C who appointed him to supervise the Army.

A soldier reputed as someone ahead of his time, Gen. Buratai by the directives of President Buhari has prioritized the expansion of the Nigerian Army his topmost agenda in other to meet the numerous security challenges in Nigeria. From Nigerian Army’s former six Divisions, Gen. Buratai has added another two to the number. Nigerian Army now has Army Division 6 (Rivers state) and Army Division 8 (Borno state) in addition to countless Forward Bases and Battalions across the country.

Buratai’s almost monthly expansion of the Army also has bold imprints in recruitments of both direct and short service officers for training. It is therefore, not unexpected that the Nigerian Army has won laurels and medals in international organizations, signposts which have restored Nigeria’s lost Military glory in the comity of nations.

The COAS also thinks a soldier deserves economic empowerment; a life of comfort and financial independence. Therefore, and in line with global trends, the Army under Buratai has evolved and implemented an economic development agenda for the convenience of soldiers and their families in tandem with the political leadership vision of President Buhari.

Pointedly, never before had the Nigerian Army boasted of the Nigeria Army Farms and Ranches; Nigerian Army Property Limited; Nigerian Army post- Service Housing Development Limited; Command Engineering Depot; and Nigerian Army Welfare Limited through an organized Guarantee or surety under friendly terms for soldiers. But under President Buhari’s direction and Gen. Buratai’s compliance, the Nigerian Army is a proud owner of these legacy investments and heritage.

When Nigerians read a recent interview Gen. Buratai hurriedly granted a journalist in his makeshift camp at Maiduguri , headquarters of Operation Lafiya Dole, while kitting himself to hop into the jungle again, he said; “ I am a soldier; am a highly patriotic soldier; a highly patriotic Nigerian who loves his country so much; who loves the progress of his country, and who loves his profession so passionately and is interested in the welfare of anyone I come across.” Truly, Gen. Buratai came prepared for the task roundly.

Onmeje is a public affairs commentator and contributed this piece from the United Kingdom.