In a desperate letter to President Goodluck
Jonathan and Senate President David Mark leaked
to SaharaReporters this past weekend, a
commanding officer stationed in Nigeria's
northeast details several troubling issues plaguing
troops combatting Islamist terror group Boko
Haram in the region.

The officer stated that, corruption,
maladministration, lack of resources and troops
motivation has militated against a successful
campaign to end Boko Haram's deadly reign of
terror in the northeast.

The officer's lengthy complaint which he claims
would lead to a threat to his life forewarns that if
his pleas continue to be ignored by the country's
leadership that both the Nigerian Army and the
country will crumble under the insurgency.

"If all issues raised in this letter are not urgently
addressed, the Nigerian Army will soon be history
and by implication there will be no country called
Nigeria," the officer gravely states. "No country
without a strong army will survive."

Below is the full text of the officer's letter
addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan

PLEASE MR PRESIDENT SAVE THE MILITARY AND
NIGERIA FROM COLLAPSING

1. Sir, I am constrain to write you this letter
which I consider it a matter of more than great
importance for me to inform you and put to record
issues that are happening in the North East
(Operation Zaman Lafiya). I choose this medium to
write you this open letter because I have written
similar letter but no action was taking which I
believe some forces have blocked it are now after
my life. Sir I have served in 7 Division as staff
officer and presently I am the commanding officer
of 103Bn in the field. My combined wealth of
experience as a staff officer and now commanding
officer are the disturbing fact that necessitated me
to write you this letter. While as a staff officer, I
was among those who believed that the
commanders in the field are not doing well. But
presently, as a commander in the field, I found out
that it is not the fault of any commander that the
defeat of the so called BOKO HARAM (BH) has not
been achieved.

2. First and foremost sir, the Nigerian Army is
poorly equipped in the North East, if all the
battalions are well-equipped as required; it will not
take the Army more than two weeks to flush out
the BH. Presently there are four units in my
location here in KONDUGA including 21 Armoured
Brigade HQ. If all the units are provided with all
their requirements, we can advance and flush out
BH out of North East. Mr. President sir, the
Nigerian Army is well-trained and capable of
defending our nation. It has demonstrated the
capacity to even successfully enforce peace in
other nations. Why not in our own country Nigeria?

3. The fact about NE operation is that we are
poorly equipped, understaffed, high corruption from
Army Headquarters down to battalion level.
Commanders see it as opportunity to make money.
My predecessor has complained of the same
problem. Instead of ASA addressing the issue
raised by him, the army authorities decided to
Court Martialled him. All the units in NE are
understaffed, but on payroll their strength are
complete just to collect more allowances than
what each unit is supposed to. The commanders
see it as a personal money making venture rather
than taking care of men and equipment. This ugly
trend led to loss of many officers and soldiers and
thereby having adverse effect on the moral (sic) of
troops. Majority of soldiers in the operation area
wear mufti (civil cloths) under their military
uniforms in case there is an attack and the troops
cannot withstand the BH, they found it easy to
disguise as civilians to enable them escape. This is
not the traditional practice in the NA. Though it is
lack of adequate equipment and poor
administration from the higher authority that
resulted to this ugly trend by our troops

4. Sir, another bad and unprofessional act is that
soldiers don’t take to orders from their superior
officers because they have lost confidence/trust
from them. The case of former General Officer
Commanding 7 Division Major General A.
Mohammed is enough evidence to show that all is
not well in the Nigerian Army. It will interest you to
note that worse cases has been recorded before
that of the former GOC and more are still
happening, but nobody is ready to investigate the
root cause of problems facing the troops in the
field.

5. This brings me to a recent occurrence which is
my main purpose of writing this letter. As I
mentioned earlier, due to the failure of the authority
to address issues that I made mentioned, when a
unit is attacked and overran by the BH not
because the soldiers are unable to fight, but lack of
weapons, ammunitions and communications
equipment, the soldiers on many occasions will ran
away, and a commander cannot stand and fight
alone as a result of this. Presently seventy percent
of commanders in the NE are facing Court Martial
due to the reasons mentioned. We the commanding
officers are very worried over this development.
This is because we many soon find our self as
victims of this maladministration from our higher
authorities.

6. There is no sincerity in this operation; this is
because the present acting GOC has never visited
any location outside Maiduguri town not to talk of
principal staff officers in Army Headquarters or
even the COAS. But we keep on hearing all sorts of
lies that Generals are leading the fight against BH.
These are facts that can be confirmed from
officers and soldiers in this operation including
those in the 7 Division Headquarters. The GOC is
so afraid that even with the Divisional
Headquarters; he doesn’t go out and always locked
himself inside his office. Infact it is a common
knowledge among officers and soldiers in this
operation that the acting GOC is here to make his
money and earn his promotion to the detriment of
the operation. The completion of his mansion at No
8 Gwamna Road in Kaduna which the GOC
ignorantly disclosed that when he completed it, will
be among the best houses in Kaduna, has turned
to be a subject of discussion among troops.

7. The former 21 Armored Brigade commander is
facing Court Martial today because the acting GOC
does not want to see him and his garrision in
Maiduguri town simply because of the huge
monthly allocations from the Borno State
government to the brigade garrision. He wanted to
be collecting his money by using 7 Div Garrison,
but in reality 7 Div Garrision does not have troops
to claim such money. It is worthy to note that the
GOC received 33,000litres of AGO and PMS each,
600 bags of rice monthly from Borno State
government. All these items are diverted for his
personal use.

8. Recently the newly appointed 21 Brigade
commander lead 3 units to flush out the BH, that
operation was successful, almost 300 BH were
killed, weapons and vehicles were recovered from
them, in the process the troops exhausted their
ammunitions from the Div, the GOC simply replied
that there was no ammunition this made all the
troops to withdraw back to KONDUGA.

9. Presently more than 3000 officers and soldiers
are either killed in action, deserted, captured as
POW or on AWOL. But due to lack of proper
administration the army directed that their salary
should be stopped. This affect the families of those
that are either genuinely killed in action or captured
as Prisoners of War. It has also affected some of
the troops that are still participating in this
operation.

10. Mr. President sir, if all issues raised in this
letter are not urgently address, the Nigerian Army
will soon be history and by implication there will be
no country called Nigeria. No country without
strong army will survive. I decided to write you
this letter because the life of officers and soldiers
trusted in my care are no longer save. My life is
also at the stake because the NA authority as
usual will say I have communicated directly to you
as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces
and may sanction me. As a citizen of this country
and a commander in the operational area, with all
the points I have mentioned in this letter, it is
clearly that the Military authorities have failed the
country, as such they should be held liable for their
misdeeds. I have consulted seasonal constitutional
lawyers if writing you this letter will be an offence,
but they said it is my constitutional right to inform
the C in C about what is happening in the NE and
within the military which if not address will affect
the survival of Nigeria.


source: http://saharareporters.com/2014/12/15/why-we-could-not-defeat-boko-haram-army-commander-writes-powerful-letter-president#.VI82_X3iksY.facebook

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kestolove95:
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