on september 04, 2014 at 8:15 pm in
news

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru & Joseph
Erunke

ABUJA - AS the Boko Haram insurgents
continue to have upper hand in the
North East, the Chief of Defence Staff,
Air Marshal Alex Badeh has revealed
that for the country to win the war
against terrorism, there was the need
for diplomatic lobbying for foreign
assistance in areas of equipment.
But the Senator representing Kaduna
Central, Senator Mohammed Saleh said
it was impossible for the military to win
the terrorism war with the present
obsolete equipment and the alleged
fraud in Ministry of Defence and the
Military Service.

Meanwhile, Senator Saleh has said that
after the Gideon Okar coup of 1990
during the regime of General Ibrahim
Babangida, the military was
systematically and comprehensively
disarmed which now makes it impossible
for the army to effectively confront any
external aggression.

Speaking at the National Assembly Joint
Committee on Defence Thursday, the
Chief of Defence Staff said that since the
declaration of state of emergency in the
three North East states of Borno,
Adamawa and Yobe, the Armed Forces
had been engaged in a sustained
operations against the terrorists.
According to Air Marshal Badeh, “In the
last one month, troops have sustained
on-going offensive operations both in
and outside seven division areas of
operation to shape the theatre, establish
fighting positions and limiting Boko
Haram freedom of movement within the
area of operation.
“Significantly, troupes are currently
carrying out unlimited offensive
operations aimed at denying Boko
haram freedom of action and from
achieving its aim to isolate and control
areas around Maiduguri.
“Additionally, the involvement of the
international community which led to
the establishment of the joint planning
committee on the 12 of May, 2014, the
initial mandate of the joint coordination
and planning committee which is
championed by America and Britain was
the fusion of intelligence for the rescue
of abducted Chibok girls.
“But this gradually is being extended to
other aspects of the operations. I want
to state here that the military is highly
engaged in operations in view of
achieving favourable outcomes.
“Moreover, the continued attacks by the
terrorists justify the imposition and
extension of state of emergency because
there is no alternative. Let me just say
that Nigerians need not lose hope in the
military but continue to support her in a
bid to defeat the terrorists.
“Secondly, all other elements of national
power should contribute more in
support of military operations. Right
now, the element of national power we
are using is the military. Other elements
of national power are not being engaged
sufficiently.
“There is also the need for diplomatic
lobbying for our foreign partners to
provide more assistance in areas of
equipment and whatever they can give
us.”

Security situation is deteriorating—Sen.
Saleh
But a member of the Senate Joint
National Assembly Committee on
Defence and an All Progressives
Congress Senator from Kaduna Central,
Senator Ahmed Saleh appeared to have
dashed the hope of the military winning
the war against terrorism even as he
said that the situation was getting worse
on daily basis.

Senators Saleh, a retired army general
said, “What I am going to say is based
on my experience as an insider. Our
duty here as senators of the federal
republic transcends the extension of
state of emergency. Our duty of
oversight should ensure that high
standards must be maintained in
addition to acquiring all necessary
equipment required to maintain a strong
force.
“When the Chief of Defense Staff was
appointed in January this year, the
service chiefs made a categorical
statement that within three months they
will crush Boko haram. But
unfortunately, what we are seeing is a
complete deterioration of the situation,
so it is incumbent on us to find out why
that deterioration. We have heard about
our soldiers’ mutiny, it is also our
responsibility to find out why that is
happening.
“For us to understand why that is
happening, we need to go back to the
Babangida (Gen. Ibrahim Babangida)
era. After the 1990 Okar coup, the
Federal Government of Nigeria
systematically and comprehensively
disarmed the military.
“All the tanks, all the artillery guns were
disarmed and locked up. All the aircraft
were parked in Ilorin and other places,
flying stopped, training stopped to
ensure regime security not national
security.
“All the good officers of the Nigerian
army were hounded out of the military.
And there was over concentration of
power at the centre which was the army
headquarters. Prior to that, General
Officers Commanding used to have
training and maneuver grants.
“They had the power and responsibility
to train their troops and battalions and
to ensure an efficient logistics and
service support system. All that stopped.
Everything was from Army
headquarters, everything was from Air
Force headquarters, everything was
from Naval headquarters.
“The attendant result was decay.
Training was no longer going on at the
battalion level, soldiers lost their skills
and since then, no additional military
equipment was purchased for the
Nigerian Army. Even things as little as
machine guns were in short supply,
ammunition was in short supply.
“An individual soldier’s professional skill
was to be a matchman, to shoot and hit
his target but can he do that if he has no
ammunition? We have a duty to rebuild
this army, to rebuild this armed forces,
and unless we understand these basic
facts, we are not going anywhere.
“Also, after some time the fighting
doctrine of the Nigerian Army was
changed. We were essentially British
brought up. That means we knew how
much materials we had, the tasks before
us and so on. But along the line during
the Obasanjo (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo)
regime, General Obasanjo brought
Americans here and our doctrine
approach was change to warfare.
“I make bold to tell you that up till today
nobody understands that. I know it is a
strategic concept of warfare but in
Nigeria we are applying it to the
operational and tactical level. It has
created a lot of confusion within our
army.
“Apart from that, our involvement in
foreign operations and the kind of
training we give to our soldiers for
operations was a kind of defensive
posture. You don’t kill until you are
killed, you don’t attack until you are
attacked.
“That also helped to change the
orientation of some of our soldiers. Then
again, I must mention here fraud within
the ministry of defense, fraud within the
military service systems themselves has
contributed a lot to diminishing our
fighting capability.
“Further to that again, we have the
issue of our combat service support.
Because of fraudulent activities, we
monetized everything. Out supply
services, our medical services are
completely inefficient and are unable to
support the fighting in the North East
now. Right now I stand to question how
our soldiers are being fed.”

Speaking earlier, Chairman Senate
Committee on Defence, Senator George
Thompson Sekibo said that the essence
of the meeting was to know why the
issue of insurgence persists in the
country and the conflicting reports on
the fight against Boko Haram in Borno,
Adamawa and Yobe states.
Senator Sekibo said, “Nigerians are
worried over the security station.
Rather than abate its worsening. The
spokesperson of the military and the
press are contradicting each other. We
want to find out the true situation of the
attacks.
“You will observe that the joint
committee of the National Assembly on
Defence met here with the Chief of
Defence staff and other security chiefs
from 10am to 3pm to get situation
reports on insurgency problem in the
three affected north eastern states as
part of follow up to the approval of state
of emergency in the affected state in
May this year.
“We have heard several stories from the
media on alleged upper hand of the
insurgents against the military and the
military telling us here that such stories
were speculative, making it difficult for
us to know which of the stories to
believe.
“The military In fact debunked stories of
major cities being taken over by the
insurgents in the three states , though
admitted that the insurgents had one of
the towns as stronghold which
according to them would be taken over
from them in a matter of time from now.
“We have also been informed by them
that presidency is doing more for them
in terms of procurement of new war
ammunition and improve in welfare
packages and other things being done to
boost the morale of those at the war
front.
“But the committee has resolved to
reach out to Mr President for direct
interaction on the national problem with
a view to knowing what and what are
being done to fight the war to its logical
conclusion which will definitely afford us
the opportunity to put in our own pieces
of advice.
“We also resolved to submit all our
findings at this meeting today to the
respective chambers on resumption
about 12 days to come”.
Senator Sekibo said the Joint Committee
wanted to know, “Who has captured
where. We are worried about the
contradictions. We want to know, is the
military still equipped or not, what is the
state of our equipment, are you having
difficulties accessing funds, if there are
funds to buy the equipment the moral of
the soldiers will raise.
“State of emergency is in the third stage
and things are worse. Do we evacuate
people there and go for full scale war,
were the funds released to you? We
should know the problem. We at
National Assembly will not rest on our
oars. Some of our people at the National
Assembly can’t go back to our states,”
he stated.

God help us

IBB disarmed the army while GEJ killed the army

Raiders: IBB disarmed the army while GEJ killed the army

That's the reason we shouldn't allow buhari to test that set of power ......Because he will bury the army

Very true, I have made mention of this before, it is because of the fear of coup by the Nigerian army that the governmentis not rready to invest more in the military, unfortunately they are short sighted, else they would have seen the danger ahead.

And what part of the constitution forbids the president from re-arming the Army??

Keep looking for means to excuse an insanely incompetent president.

Mscheew.

Thank God that we've started acquiring new military equipments. Things can only continue to get better for us in this war against these terrorists.

omenka: And what part of the constitution forbids the president from re-arming the Army??

Keep looking for means to excuse an insanely incompetent president.

Mscheew.

I love ur grammatical construction 're-army the army'. Lmao

The senator has said it all. Millitary rule, corruption, poor training incompetent leadership infact the major problems affecting theNigerian society as a whole. The millitary is an extension of the failing state called Nigeria.
What we can do to reverse the tide and save this country.
1.Firstly it start's from the top i.e the president we need a competent and strong leader that understand our dire situation as a country not the lucky sissy that governs by luck and always afraid to take the bull by horn. My take he needs to be schooled on what it takes to be an effective leader of which we don't have the time for that.
2. Put the millitary in a wartime situation and purge it of those never do well officer's and soldier's that are in the armed forces just because they are in need of employment.
3. A faced retraining of the armed forces on assymetric warfare thats for the long term but in the interim the most combat ready division's should be deployed stem the tide or bring about stale meet until better trained soldier's that are well schooled in counter insurgency operation's are ready for action.
4. Improvement of our intelligence gathering capabilities by collaberating with member's of the communitie's that the insurgent's operate. I still wonder why it is taking the Nigerian intelligence establishment so much time to infiltrate bokoharam and their leadership .
5. Use of the media against these terrorist. The media houses can do more to help the war against terrorism i don't mean by spreading false new's of army or bokoharam successes. But they can do more instead of releasing video's posted by shekau and his lot the media could turn the table's against him by exposing and telling the world the attrocitie's committed by this zealots in order to deny them of any sympathy they might be getting from Nigerians or people from area's ravaged by the insurgency.
5. Funding! funding !funding! You can't win a war without funding and equiping of the men that are going to lay down their lives for the survival of this country. The best fighting forces from time immemorial are known to be well equiped motivated and well paid we can't win this war without proper funding of the armed forces.
6. Lastly there is a popular saying that '' heaven help those who help themselve's we can't win this war without the political will and drive to put a stop to this carnage by bokoharam. Until when we are ready to help ourselve's puting in place the right political structure's in this time of great peril. Its only then we can talk about ridden the country off terrorism of any kind.

We should stop looking for excuse for our failures. What's stopping the Govt from providing Modern weaponry for both the Airforce and Army. Seun. Unban Ibnsultan

condralbede: That's the reason we shouldn't allow buhari to test that set of power ......Because he will bury the army

I agree with you. Nigeria deserve better leaders than GEJ and buhari.

Fear of Coup!! GEJ is a Pússy!

good BH is teaching Nigeria army a good lesson.

fear of coups?

nonsense

that why they destroy the army

Virtually all the evils bedevilling this country are traceable to IBB- a self-confessed EVIL genius. He decimated a country's army, combat-readiness and security for his personal security ! And he is walking free. Well such can only happen in an insane society that Nigeria is.

PenSniper: Virtually all the evils bedevilling this country are traceable to IBB- a self-confessed EVIL genius. He decimated a country's army, combat-readiness and security for his personal security ! And he is walking free. Well such can only happen in an insane society that Nigeria is.

slow down with that GEJ cool aid.

What type of army equipments Abacha used in Sierra leone? where are those cluster bombs that the NAF used in Freetown? was it not after IBB?
Please stopping shielding the GoatLuck

Gayigaskia:

slow down with that GEJ cool aid.

What type of army equipments Abacha used in Sierra leone? where are those cluster bombs that the NAF used in Freetown? was it not after IBB?
Please stopping shielding the GoatLuck

I have no interest shielding GEJ but the Saleh guy who spoke was a man in the know. An insider. Killing the army for self security does not translate to not having any munition in the armoury at all. Cluster bombs are hardly the sort of weapon needed in a coup either.

Then
again, I must mention here fraud within
the ministry of defense, fraud within the
military service systems themselves has
contributed a lot to diminishing our
fighting capability...

Training was no longer going on at the
battalion level, soldiers lost their skills
and since then, no additional military
equipment was purchased for the
Nigerian Army. Even things as little as
machine guns were in short supply,
ammunition was in short supply.

Summary!