Combat is never a comfortable or enjoyable experience and cant be made so. But the soldier who is eating well, has adequate supplies and modern equipment, and also feels that he is being supported both by the Army and the civilian population, will perform far better than the one who feels neglected,” – Lt. Gen. William G. Pagonis.

For more than ten years now, the dreaded and blood-thirsty members of the insurgent group called Boko Haram have held the nation and some African states in the jugular. They have continued to spill blood and bile, kidnap, rape and rob, especially in the North Eastern part of the country and beyond, without restraint.

On their part, the Nigerian army have embraced the challenge with vigour, vivacity and verve. They have exhibited unequalled and unrestrained gallantry.

However, the bloody music has continued ceaselessly drenching the nation with unimaginable tales of horror being unleashed by the insurgents.

A chance meeting with one of the active participants and a gallant soldier, straight from the battle field, unravelled stomach-churning and eye-popping tales from the war front, fit only in dreams. Excerpts:

Life in Maiduguri
Life there generally in Maiduguri was not easy, but we thank God for the grace to be alive. I have crisscrossed and served at many locations there, because I am a member of the Armed Forces Special Forces (AFSF), so, if there is an attack in any location, we are likely to be moved to reinforce another location.

I have been under Mafa, a local government where we have 112 Force Battalion as at September/December 2016. I have also been in Dikwa, the Headquarter of 22 brigade. From Dikwa we moved to Gachigbo where we had a company located there, then to Logomani, then to head bridge, the Gaborun ngala, under Calabangi local government. From Calabangi local government, we equally have a location called Rann, where last time, there was a helicopter mishap.

When they came, rather than shooting the enemies who were at the IDP camp, they shot at us about 8-9 pm on that faithful day. They claimed later that they could not differentiate between the enemies and our soldiers.

File: Some of the Boko Haram members who surrendered recently. The military did not allow Ali Goni’s photograph to be taken as he is a minor
But that excuse did not hold water. This is because we were well kitted but Boko Haram insurgents were a rag-tag group and you could easily differentiate us from them. Moreover, a fighter with night vision goggle was supposed to differentiate us from the enemies. This obviously cannot happen with the British or US army.

Secondly, many times when we come under enemy attack, we call air force and sometimes they don’t come. Sometimes they come and say they don’t have the authorization to engage the enemies. Just like the attack that took place on August 15, this year at Bama, the jet went ahead and saw those Boko Haram Troups bouncing towards our location.

He told the ground troops to withdraw, that the strength of the enemy was overwhelming. The officer who was a major, standing in place of the commanding officer ordered us to engage them, but the pilot said he had not received authorization. Do we need authorization from anywhere to kill the insurgents when they were killing our soldiers? So, we went ahead and recorded another mass casualty there. Sometimes, they will tell you they don’t have aviation fuel.

Camerounianans and Mine Resistant vehicles
Also, the incident that took place in July, this year, in Jakana which is the Operational Area Responsibility (OAR) for 212 Taskforce battalion, when the fighter jet eventually came, they released only one bomb and disappeared. When Boko haram terrorists came again, the troops withdrew.

Then, we called them to return but they refused, saying that Boko Haram was shooting at it with Anti Aircraft (AA). They also claimed that they could site some of our soldiers on uniform among them but we told them that those people were not our men; they just had uniform. We told them to kill anything you see inside the camp.

The pilot still left. That was why Boko haram over ran that camp. At a point in time, when the General Officer in Command, GOC, paid a visit to the location two days after the attack, he was not happy with the performance of the Airforce. The battles fronts are many. Bama, Banki, Darel-Jema, Kumshe areas where we and some Cameroonian forces carried out joint patrol.

If you come out there, you would come across Pulka, then by the left again, you would go to a place called Ngoshe. When you pass Gwoza, you will enter a village called Imankra, from there, you get to Madangali, after there, Mubi. These are parts of Adamawa, but again, these are all under 23 Brigade. So, we didn’t want to interfere with their activities.

So at Bama, the Cameroonians have a lot of Mine Resistance ambush protection vehicles but we, as a battalion can boast of only one or two. However, the problem is that the Cameroonians don’t have the mind to resist attacks. So, when the insurgents attacked Kumshe, most of them fled. But Nigerian troops manned the vehicles which we used to dislodge them.
Nigerian troops rallied to flush out Boko Haram rag tag forces in Guzamala

The battle of Alargano

Alagano is the spiritual temple or Headquarters of Boko Haram. It is where they have their Imams, Mullas etc. During the battle that took place in November/December, last year, we surrounded the place and most of the insurgents fled under our heavy gun fire. But, their head, the Imam, stood. We were shooting him but bullets couldn’t penetrate him. At a point, we had to move the car and hit him down, and then we used other weapons like rod, to inflict physical injuries on him. Eventually, we took him for questioning to the command, from there, they took him to Abuja for further interrogation and after then, we didn’t hear anything again.

The battle of Gudumbali

“Gudungali is the headquarters of Guzamala local government area. Those guys came In about 17 to 18 gun trucks at dawn and started shooting and chanting Alahu Akbah. They entered all places and dislodged our troops, soldiers and civilians were all running. It wasn’t a sudden ambush, but a deliberate attack. You could say you are prepared, but, when there is fire power that overwhelms you, it becomes difficult. They continued to shoot, we tried our best, but at a point, there was no more ammunition.

So, the troops started to retreat from Guzamala to Gudumbali, about seven kilometres on foot with civilians. We tried our best, we stood for about seven to eight hours with those guys, but, when it was dusk, we ran. They had excess ammunition to waste. When they are attacking they don’t conserve ammunition or observe fire discipline. So, they took over the area temporarily. But, by morning when our fighter jet came, we dislodged them.


Read full report at: https://www.efogator.com/2019/08/heart-touching-story-from-boko-haram.html

If it was under Jonathan, opposition said he didn't buy weapons for the soldiers.

What is the delay now? The man that promised to b lead from the front can't even walk well again.

Na wa oh. And someone from somewhere is saying "Nigeria go better"