The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, recently addressed newsmen at the State House after meeting behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
In the address, he mentioned that terrorism and banditry will end only when Nigerians decide.
Standing out like a sore thumb in that address is a country whose peoples are overly sensitive to their ethnic, cultural and religious diversities, is the lop-sidedness in the composition of the top security chiefs, zonally. Buratai comes from Borno State and yet insecurity, particularly in the north has been on the upswing in the last five years of this administration.
Boko Haram insurgents, an extremist Islamic group that Tukur Buratai under Buhari’s directives had promised to decimate within three months when he first took the presidential oath in May 2015, have been having a field day in some parts of the northeast, particularly Borno, kidnapping, killing, maiming, raping and in the process turning hundreds of school girls into sex slaves.
In the northwest states of Katsina and Kaduna and Sokoto and Zamfara, bandits and rustlers strike at will, leaving in their wake death, blood and tears. And in the north central states of Nasarawa and Niger and Kogi, bandits, armed robbers, and kidnappers have long had a field day sowing death and destruction. The common denominator among these non-state agents of violence is that they fight for no higher purpose; they simply kill the people and burn down communities for the fun of it.
Raiding from the north down south are gun-toting herders and kidnappers on the loose, attacking farmers, destroying farmlands, raping women and killing for sport.
Although the problem of Boko Haram insurgency, violent communal clashes, kidnappings, and insensate criminality predated this administration, the insecurity situation has deepened and widened and worsened under Buratai in the last five years. Indeed, it wouldn’t be uncharitable to conclude that on the strength of his performance, or lack of it, that Buhari, with his leadership style, his policies, his utterances, his actions, no inaction, has enabled non-state actors of violence. For clarity, let us examine this one after the other.
365 soldiers recently resigned from the Nigeria Army. About three or four weeks ago, it was reported that Boko Haram insurgents killed some soldiers in a reprisal attack at a village in Borno state. Although the Nigerian Army has denied the news about the voluntary resignation of 365 of its men, lawmakers in the Federal House of Representatives had said they would launch an inquiry into the news in a bid to substantiate the true nations of things. But beyond this, there are some things that should be considered in this matter.
Some weeks ago, there was a viral video of a soldier objurgating the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai and decried his leadership of the Nigerian Army. The man and his wife was said to have been arrested following his dismissal from the military. Before that, sometimes in 2019 there was an audio that went viral of soldiers bemoaning their non-payment of salaries. When you take the words of these disgruntled soldiers are taken into cognizance, the resignation of 365 soldiers wouldn’t be a surprise. About 400 were reported to have fled to Cameroon in 2018. It shows that the soldiers are not happy with the way their welfarism is handled by the Nigerian military, show how demoralised many of the soldiers have become, and it further shows the Nigerian Army is embattled and needs saving from itself.
These soldiers whose welfarism is neglected are not oblivious of the humongous salaries and allowances of legislators who are experts at bickering instead of legislating and also see how the men in the top brass of the Nigerian military don’t suffer what they suffer. They have also seen how some of their fallen colleagues were treated with disdain, the most indignant being the victims of Metele attacks on November 18, 2018. Apart from the military hierarchy disputing the total number of men killed in a bid to save the public image of the military, the burial was rather shameful. They were buried as if they have died for nothing.
When people decide they don’t want to be doctors or engineers but chose to fight for the territorial integrity of their country, this type of undeserving treatments have demoralising effects on the concerned. When you put your life on the line for your country and you’re rewarded with unpaid salaries while you read of how politicians enrich themselves at the expense of the country, know that poor military intelligence puts your life and purpose at risk and also watch your fallen colleagues sent to the world beyond with utmost disdain, you cannot but be uncommitted to a cause such as national security and voluntarily withdrawing your service to save yourself.
The fact that the Nigerian Army is underequipped is even a more disturbing issue. This puts them at a disadvantaged position against the insurgents. Unfortunately, it had been like that for a long time. Since the battle against insurgency has started in 2009, it is as if the soldiers were systematically been pushed to die in the guise of fighting for their country. Yet billions of naira is budgeted for security every year. One could therefore wonder what gulped the money if they are not used to improve the military arsenal. Modern warfare against insurgents is now fought with high-tech weaponry many of which the Nigerian army for some reasons don’t have. The fact that the soldiers continue to go to battle against the insurgents and watch some of their comrades-in-arms die almost like an unarmed man is enough to demoralise them and prompt as many as 365 soldiers to resign at once.
If you are prosecuting a war and you don’t have enough weapons in your arsenal to match that of your enemy, defeat is inevitable. And when as a soldier you are aware that the men charged with equipping you and making your job easy have failed to do so thereby leading to strains of defeats by your enemies, it is enough reasons for you to get dispirited. After all, you are the one doing the fighting not your ogas at the top and you bear the brunt more than the men giving orders.
Thus, when the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai said men of the Nigerian Army are still encouraged enough to take up arms against Boko Haram insurgents, it is more of him defending himself and other security chiefs who have constantly been under public indignation since their appointment in 2015 than him saying the truth about the true nature of things. The resignation of 365 soldiers in a week from an army that has complained of being understaffed in recent times shows that the soldiers are not happy.
Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai has ruined the reputation of the Nigerian security and in our opinion he is the worst Chief Of Army Staff to ever hold that position in the history of Nigeria.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
