A defence and security expert, Nnamdi Chife, has described as unfortunate some of the challenges the Nigeria president, Goodluck Jonathan, is facing since becoming the president of the country, especially the Boko Haram insurgency.
According to him, the inability of the military to prepare for the future contributed to what is happening at the moment while citing a statement by a former defense secretary under presidents George Bush and Barack Obama of the United States of America.
“Robert Gates is one American that had the privilege of serving eight US presidents, as national security staff at various times, deputy director of the CIA, CIA director, and a defense secretary under presidents Bush and Obama, respectively,” he said.
“In his memoir “DUTY,” he complained bitterly about the US defense department, fixated on future conventional wars, without considering the non-conventional wars such as the counter insurgency they were waging in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.
“He opined that the military leaders at the pentagon were not planning enough and deploying the right military hardware suitable to the operations, including the need to protect the troops adequately following heavy American casualties.
“My key-take away from Gate’s observation is on planning for the future and current military conflicts. It leads one to wonder whether Nigeria has such a structure where civilian leadership interrogates the military leadership on the future and current military exigencies, in terms of wars, joint training and equipment.
“In criticizing the Nigerian military’s war efforts in the Northeast, we often fail to understand the historical context within which they are performing the current task, we choose to disregard the decades of sheer neglect of future military planning, joint military trainings for fear they may be used as avenue to plan coups, and ignored the paltry sums that were allocated to defence procurements.
“Even lessons of past military interventions in Sierra Leone and Liberia were never learned. We often trumpet the military successes in those wars, but failed to realize the Nigerian military faced same current challenges then, because at a point in the battle for Monrovia, Major General Victor Malu, the ECOMOG Field Commander, had to fly to Abuja to complain he needed infantry fighting vehicles or the fact that the Nigerian troops in Sierra Leone had no assault helicopters for military advances until British special forces landed with the capability to win the war.”
Speaking further, Chife said the current military offensive against the Boko Haram terrorists has been interpreted as political, aimed to improve the electoral fortunes of the ruling party, but according to him, that is not the true position.
While analysing the outbreak of the Boko Haram group, the expert explained that the terrorist group’s rebellion against the Nigerian state begin from 2011 after they were dispersed in 2009 by the security services, which culminated in the death of the pioneer leader, Mohammed Yusuf, and attempts made by the military and security forces to contain the threat.
He added: “Year 2010 was the regrouping under Abu Shekau, with raids on police stations, prisons, and setting off bomb explosions. They graduated to another level with the first suicide bombing in Nigeria which happened at police force headquarters, Abuja, on 16th June 2011. That singular attack was followed by other suicide and bomb attacks across the northeast, especially places of worship, police stations and with a signature suicide attack on the United Nations headquarters.
“Going by President Goodluck Jonathan’s explanation recently that he underestimated the Boko Haram threat, his humble admission should be taken in the light of the above questions and to understand the intelligence/security briefings he was receiving at the time from the highest defence and security leadership in Nigeria.
“They obviously did not think the group would graduate into seizing territories, to establish a caliphate. Had they analyzed properly, they would have set out in the day to plan for the oncoming war, but they never did. The general view is that they focused their plan and strategy on counter terrorism and developing resources to counter and degrade the ability of the terror group to commit more acts of terror against the citizens.”
Profering, Chife said there is need to increase numbers of security personnel posted to the Northeast to tackle the menace of the Book Haram terrorist group.
According to him, while the military were trying their best fighting off terrorists, defending towns, and generally held-on their own in some key fronts, however, failure of equipment, inadequate strategy and tactics on the part of some commanders led major towns to fall, while they also suffered heavy casualties.
“Looking at what military needed to win in early 2014; a special forces brigade to be stationed in northeast to aid the CT-COIN; hundreds of MRAPs and T70 tanks to support troop advances against Boko Haram’s deadly mines and IEDS; with complements of adequate air support and ISR’; cooperation from the three neighbouring countries to deny Boko Haram sanctuaries, and more specialized battalions and specialized military units to be deployed.
“Robert Gates, on getting to know that the US forces suffered heavy casualties while riding in Humvees against the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents, bypassed the pentagon bureaucracy, and rolled out first set of MRAPs within one year, which did a lot to save lives.
“The above provisions outlined for the Nigerian military in early 2014 could not have taken nothing less than six to 12 months to be ready. It is a disservice to the Nigerian military to say they are currently engaging in the fight for political reasons, without appreciating the challenges that dotted the landscape, though with huge consequences for human lives.
“It is on record the military stated in December 2014, that they would start military operations in February 2015, and chief of army staff, Lt. General Minimah at various fora, reiterated the army would go offensive as soon the military hardware arrived, and it needs not be repeated that president Jonathan held several security meetings with his team, and neigbouring countries late last year, all geared towards the big offensive in 2015 with the objective of pacifying the Northeast for the general elections.”
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