Lt-Colonel Anthony Nyiam (rtd) is one of the few surviving men, who staged a coup against the regime of former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida. He also worked closely with Chief Moshood Abiola, General Alani Akinrinade, Chief Anthony Enahoro, among others. He speaks with KUNLE ODEREMI on Nigeria’s wobbling security architecture, the rising spate of banditry and why President Muhammadu Buhari’s security background can’t effectively address the country’s festering security crisis.
How can you describe the departed Afenifere chieftain, Odumakin?
Comrade Yinka Odumakin is among the greatest Nigerians I have worked with. I worked with him during the NADECO activities with Professor Wole Soyinka in London. I have worked with Alao Aka-Basorun; we worked together from his cottage in London. I have worked with Ken Saro-Wiwa, the late Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu; Beko Ransom Kuti and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But of all, I admire and cherish Odumakin for his intelligence, courage, and readiness to make huge sacrifices for the masses. But God knows better for taking him away at this time. As someone that has had near-death experience in humanitarian struggle, may his departed soul rest well.
What vacuum is his death likely to cause in the political landscape of Nigeria?
The vacuum is huge, because Odumakin is the bridge that connects the Omo Oduduwa (The West), Ndigbos (The South) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (The North). I will tell you an incident which is remarkable about Yinka. There was a time that the Northern Elders Forum were to meet with the Southern and Middle Belt Forum leaders and many were a bit worried about the meeting and almost raised an objection. But Yinka worked tirelessly for us and the leaders of the South: Chief Nwodo; Chief Edwin Clark; Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Dr [Bitrus] Pogu of the Middle Belt Forum and Dan Suleiman. The Middle Belt people didn’t want the meeting to hold but Yinka did all he could to ensure the meeting went as planned. With this, I see him as a great leader. So we have lost that gap filled by a big leader.
But with Odumakin’s passage, has the struggle to restructure Nigeria, among other national agitations, ended?
No, the struggle hasn’t ended. But as I said, God works in mysterious ways. And from that perspective, the Yinka spirit lives on. And with it, like a horse, we will rise to find solutions to our problems in Nigeria. Let me use this opportunity to pay my condolences to Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin who has lost a soul mate, husband and one who sincerely is a comrade to myself. We did quite a number of things together which gave me the courage, intelligence, tenacity and the Odumakins’ kind of love for the masses.
With the benefit of insight, how will you describe the state of the nation today?
The state of the nation is worse than ever. We have never had the current spate of insecurity in Nigerian history, to the extent that the military arms base in Jaji, Kaduna, has been tampered with by bandits. It just tells you how bad it is, to the extent that the Kaduna-Abuja road is now impassable and most of Niger State is taken over by bandits. You also have them all over the North-West, even as there are agitations and killings of Igbos in the South-East and Yorubas in the South-West by armed AK-47 Fulanis. From Ibarapa down to Saki and Igboora, the terror has continued to prevail. But with the recent happening in Chad, I want to use this medium to warn our people and the President [Muhammadu Buhari] that the nightmares we have faced months back will be little compared to the carnage that will soon be unleashed on us all if we do not all rise up with proper contingency plans to tame the rampaging bandits in the light of the Chad happening.
Why did you say so?
Years ago, while speaking on Channels TV after the return of Gadhafi when arms were coming into Kano, I warned, because then Gadhafi’s best soldiers were from Mali, Chad, Niger Republic and even Nigeria. But our people did not know. In fact, one of Gadhafi’s senior soldiers was actually from Edo State, Nigeria. So when Gadhafi was pushed away, most of the soldiers left with the arms. What is worse now is that there is a recent settlement of the warring factions in Libya, which the UN, Russia and Egypt all agreed on. And they asked all the warlords to cease fire and disband their groups. But the bulk of the main troops of one of the greatest warlords, General Khalifa are from Chad.
The Army General has allowed them to go with all their arms. It was this movement that the late Chadian President feared that made him to withdraw his troops doing UN assignments with the French in Mali. He ordered them to come back only for him to be eventually killed as his troops met with those with superior fire powers. With this now, Chad army is in disarray. Most of the soldiers from Libya have become refugees and they have been able to make their way into soft target countries like Nigeria. But the implication of their coming is that arms will flow. This is more reason the government needs to be more watchful and come out with more containment plans because these people are sophisticatedly armed. Above all, the government should wake up from its sleep and start engaging the diverse nations that make up Nigeria.
How do you mean?
What I mean is that Nigeria is a country of many nations: the Yoruba nation, the Hausas, the Ndigbos, the Middle Belt and the South-South. You would have heard and seen yearnings for self-determination in the country by the Oduduwa group and the IPOB group which are becoming bolder by the day. So we cannot continue to pretend that things are getting better because they are not. And the only way is for the country to go for persuasion instead of coercion.
The government needs to start platforms for engagement that will come in the form of national conferences. The whole talk that the current constitution can be amended at the National Assembly is crap that should only be served to the marines. That is because when you have an existential problem as we currently have in Nigeria, you have to go beyond the delegates of the people to the masses themselves who are struggling. They were the ones that temporarily surrendered their sovereignty. So, the government has to go to them when it comes to having crucial forums. This is because that is the norm in most developed countries of the world. When they want to take a vital decision of national importance, the government goes straight to the people and not their delegates. So, we should stop playing the mediocrity and ignorant game, thinking we can deceive everybody, because Nigerian youths are more informed and inspired than the old generations.
But the government said that it is not interested in convening any national conference whatsoever and that whoever has a grievance should go to the National Assembly which is trying to amend the constitution at the moment?
I have explained to you that the government’s stance is based on ignorance, pretending that it does not know the difference between legitimacy and legality. There is a court of law and there is a court of the people. There are also natural laws and man-made laws. I hope you know their difference. But for a government measure to be legitimate and meet all moral ethics for good cause, it has to go above being legal. We need to stop being governed by mediocre and ignorant people, who feast on the injustices that prevail in Nigeria.
But with what is on ground now, based on your analysis of the worrisome state of insecurity and banditry, how do you see the future of Nigeria in the next few years?
If we do nothing and continue the way we are going now, where cabals of sinister individuals, for their own selfish interest, misguide a president who forgets things very badly, the future doesn’t look bright. Except for the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari; the Comptroller-General of Customs, Colonel Hameed Ali; the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu; the president’s wife, Aisha Buhari, the rest of the people around the president are working for their pockets. In fact, the president has been hijacked by unelected people who are misleading him. The National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, is honestly trying to the best of his ability; I am sure you know his qualifications. The Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS) is also doing his best.
Then if these people are trying, why are we still facing the security problem?
The ones I mentioned are in the minority. The Chief of Staff to the President just got in there. Though he has tried all his best, he hasn’t been given the chance to perform. But these people that hold the government have their influences in different ministries and states. They are the problem as they strive for only their own self-interest. And that’s why everything in the government has become transactional. That is why you see the new Chief of Army Staff crying out and telling the National Assembly to go and hold those who control the government. This is because the current system which the new military leaders are trying to fight against can only work well for those who will be giving kickbacks to the handlers of Buhari.
But the several groups you belong to have advocated a change in the leadership of the security architecture in the country which has been done, but the problem still persists. What do you think is actually wrong with the system?
The point I am trying to make is that it is not about changing the leadership of the military or the presidency. It is about the need to change the system of governance in Nigeria and its security architecture. I have come up with a proposal that changing service chiefs is not enough. It is clear from the strategic overview of the changing Nigerian security environment that the use by enemies within and without, of non-state gangs, skillful in the resort to unconventional warfare techniques and tactics, will remain the major threat to Nigerians. According to the 2019 Global Terrorism Index, Nigeria ranks third behind Afghanistan and Iraq out of 163 countries; AK-47 armed Fulani militia and Boko Haram were in 2016 declared as being among the top four deadliest terror groups in the world.
In view of the security situation in the country, there cannot be a basis for good governance without the attainment of a national security objective. This necessitated the memo I sent to you which I wrote to the president, the NASS and the Nigerian people in September, 2020. In the memo, I noted that we cannot but remember the consistent lack of clarity and sincerity of purpose by the Muhammadu Buhari government in the management of the Nigerian national security challenges. This is particularly significant as the insincerity and associated absence of a political will are part of the fuel stoking the Nigerian national insecurity incidence.
A good example of this is President Buhari’s lack of political will to arrest his kinsmen who are moving all over Nigeria, illegally armed with AK-47 rifles. Why, for instance, are the consistent victims of these essentially transnational armed Fulani militia arrested, and whatever they carry in self-defence are confiscated? While these perpetrators of atrocities are free to move about all over Nigeria unchecked. The victims, in question, include members of the Hausa and Middle Belt farming communities in the North, and some communities of the Southern states. Why the Buhari government’s double standard?
In the memo, I also stated that the inclination to deploy solely military power approach to national security challenges management. This tendency is responsible for PMB’s lack of social, political and economic leadership of the military in their conduct of combat operations. The president’s ignorance of the significance of Soft-Power is responsible for the prolongation and increase in the numbers of threats to national security.
This is worsened by Buhari’s refusal to have, in his kitchen cabinet, experts or statesmen, who are capable of making up for his shortcomings. General Yakubu Gowan’s leadership example is there for the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) to learn from. The Nigeria Civil War would not have been won by General Gowon in three years without the strategic roles of Chiefs Obafemi Awolowo and Anthony Enahoro, and other officials like the brilliant Attorney-General of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), Dr Teslim Elias, and the super-Permanent Secretaries like Ahmed Joda; Allison Ayida and Philips Asiodu. These experts were invited into General Gowon’s inner circle on merit. For instance, none of them came from General Gowon’s ethnic group.
There is the lack of an effective structure for the highest management of national security challenges or the laws to ensure that President Buhari uses, like General Gowon did, deliberately, Soft-Power assets as a boost to the Hard (Military) Power being employed in the Boko Haram counter-insurgency war. This is so suggested as this is a kind of war which has never been won by resorting to solely military power.
In the memo, I also mentioned the erroneous thinking and resultant practices of appointing only those with military, or police training background as the National Security Adviser to the President. This has further entrenched this wrong notion of seeing national security from only the spectacles of a military or police or intelligence official’s mindset.
It is bad enough that President Buhari relies only on the military option, but the developments have become worsened by the president’s excessive dependence on the use of conventional armed forces to fight an asymmetric war. This is a contradiction that has gone on, for too long. There is a wide, and deep, gap in the existing Nigerian security system. There is an absence of a place for the use of unconventional forces that are better oriented in terms of their training, craft and organisation to fight unconventional warfare. This is obviously the drawback of the Nigerian tate’s capability to eliminate, or even contain, the present threats to national security.
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