The number of people calling for the sack of theservice chiefsin Nigeria is growing everyday. Even from the unusual quarters in the northern part of the country, those demanding the heads of the service chiefs are increasing daily. The situation is so serious and making them to begin to jettison age-long primordial consideration. This is understandable.The absurditiesand anomalies that are currently defining the security of lives and properties in Nigeria are increasing daily and provoking reactions of Nigerians.Many people believe that the service chiefs had disappointed Nigerians.
The service chiefs are the appointees of the Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s armed forces who is also the president of the country. They are saddled with the responsibility of safeguarding the security of lives and properties of Nigerians on behalf of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Therefore, they become the easy targets of criticism when the security of the country and/or Nigerians is under threat.
Recently, the Sultan of Sokoto, a highly revered traditional ruler in the North, described the northern part of Nigeria as the most dangerous place to live in the country. To confirm that the traditional ruler was not just an alarmist, not quite two weeks after expressing his view, over 500 defenselessyoung secondary school students were abducted in their school in Katsina State, the home state of the Commander-in-Chief himself. Ironically, the chief security officer of the nation himself was holidaying few kilometers away from where the terrorists struck to bundle hundreds of hapless students into no man knows where. Imagine how the long lasting traumatic experience of the innocent young chaps would be!
Earlier and not long before the heartless abduction of the innocent students in Katsina State, the nation was struck with the horror of the gruesome massacre of hapless rice farmers who were busy on their farms,also in the northern part of the country.Some media reports gave the number of murdered farmers as 43 while some said those massacred were more than 100. The number of those killed is even immaterial here but the circumstances surrounding their gruesome murder. As usual, the criminals and their whereabouts would remain elusive to Nigeria’s security architecture. It is as if the terrorists have their abode in the space and only come to operate on Nigeria’s landscape any time they want.
The issue of senseless killings of innocent Nigerians, kidnappings, armed robbery and other heinous crimes has become more of a daily occurrence in all parts of the country. This sorrysituation had earned Nigeria an unenviable leadership position among the most terrorized nations of the world. This is aside the economic implications.Even during the civil war between 1967 and 1970, the security of lives and properties never reached the level of the present sorry state in the country. Then, people could move and work freely without any threat to their lives and propertiesin all parts of the country, apart from people at the war front.
But in spite of the present gloomy situation, those calling for the heads of the service chiefs are missing the mark.There is the Yoruba proverb that says: “Won niamukuneru re wo, o niokeni e nwo, eowoisale”. In other words, when you tell a partially crippled man that his load is bent, he will tell you that you are just looking up without looking down which is the real source of the bend.
Given the training each of the service chiefs had received before attaining their present positions, there is no doubt that they are competent except something is fundamentally wrong internally withthe system that produced them.The person who appointed them knew that theywere not onlycompetent, their loyalty (especially to him) was also not in doubt before he appointed them. So, people calling for the sack of the service chiefs are ignorantly trying to make them the scapegoats of the sorry situation. We may find out later that afterall, the fault wasn’t theirs but merely making them the scapegoats.
In April this year, I had tried to explain this in the write-up titled: ‘Service Chiefs as scapegoats’ which was published in the NigerianTribune of April 13, 2020. Part of it reads:
“A cursory analysis of the workings of security in any organized society will show that the call for the heads of the Nigerian security chiefs is misplaced. It is tantamount to reducing the security chiefs to mere scapegoats. In the first instance, we have to take cognizance of the fact that the security chiefs are the appointees of somebody who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces based on his trust in their competence and ability to carry out any given security assignment. Their background and training usually count in their appointments. They had undergone special trainings and had garnered a lot of experience before their appointments into such high office. There is therefore no doubt that the present service chiefs in Nigeria are highly competent. So if it appears they are not performing, the issue of their seeming incompetence must be viewed holistically.
The questions Nigerians must ask themselves, especially those calling for the dismissal of the service chiefs include: “On the performance of the service chiefs so far, what is the assessment of the Commander-in-Chief who appointed them? Is he gauging their performance with the same lenses that the ordinary Nigerians are using? If they are not performing to his expectation or moving to his expected goal, does he need anyone to tell him to replace them? After all, their appointments were accompanied with specific goal. We should not forget also that their Commander-in-Chief was a retired Army General who knows what it means to achieve a military target.
A logical assumption therefore is that in the fight against Boko Haram and other related security issues, the service chiefs are doing exactly what their Commander-in-Chief wants them to do. In other words, viewed logically, the situation is exactly how the Commander-in-Chief wants it to be. If he should appoint replacements for them, this would change the prevailing situation and therefore tantamount to working against his own goal. The service chiefs must be spared of being made undeserved scapegoats.”
In other words, calling on Buhari to dismiss the service chiefs amounts to insulting the Commander-in-Chief that he doesn’t know what he is doing.The president’s spokesman had earlier told Nigerians the bitter truth that the clamour of some people would not make the president change the service chiefs.
What I know is that the moment the service chiefs are not achieving the goal the president wants them to achieve, no one would appeal to him to sack them before doing so.
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