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.


I hope this make fp cause this is the truth in the making am not a buhari or jonathan but a better nigeria...my dream is to be an army officer in the nigerian army but see what corrupt generals have done to my beloved army..