A country is nothing without its army. In fact, in today’s competitive world, a nation is rated by the quality and efficiency of its armed forces. Corollary to this is the fact that an Army cannot be effective and result- oriented unless it has a good Commander-in-Chief or conversely, an army is as good as its commander- in- chief. It could be said that in the past five years which corresponds to the period President Goodluck Jonathan has been in power, corresponds to the period when the Nigerian Army has lost its professionalism, pride of place and fighting ability or combat readiness. Under the watch of President Goodluck Jonathan as Supreme Commander, we now have a lacklustre military, the type that has made a friend of the Nigerian current leader, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda to laugh and wonder at Nigeria. The popular Uganda leader, who is a good friend to Nigeria’s Jonathan, recently told a political rally in Kampala, his capital that he would rather commit suicide by hanging than do what the Nigerian Army has allowed to happen, hand over the security of his country and a fight against a domestic insurgency to foreign forces- the US, UK, France, China and Israel with all the implications for national security of Africa’s so called leading nation. Under President Jonathan, the Nigerian Army is now like a Boys’ Scout movement which prevaricates and looks for excuses for its failings in the most minimal of security tasks. It was not always like this. The Nigerian Army, use to be well ranked and since the early 1960’s have performed with distinction at international peace- keeping missions of the United Nations. From a confident and well-trained military whose mere mention put fear in the minds of rebels and trouble makers around the world, the armed forces under its present commander-in-chief has become one that is unsure of itself and issues press statements which are refuted minutes after they are issued or which events in a few days prove to be false. Recently, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was a General in that army when it was a force to reckon with, admonished the military to shun propaganda. Obasanjo made this caution in response to childish claims made by the Chief of Defence Staff which was broadcast on local and foreign television channels that the army knew the location of the kidnapped Chibok girls but that it cannot use force to free them to avoid the girls coming to harm. By cautioning the military against dangerous propaganda or false claims, the former President reflected the views of many Nigerians who are piqued by the poor showing of the nation’s military since the Boko Haram terrorists took on the country full time in the last four years. All Nigerians remember that it is this same Army under its present Commander-in-Chief that has watched the insurgency grow from a small time to a big time insurgency that has now compelled us to accept foreign military assistance. Second, everyone remembers how the military claimed that it had eliminated the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, without providing his dead body or a picture of the latter, only for the Commander- in- Chief of the Boko Haram to now surface in a demeaning video, triumphantly showing off the more than the 250 Chibok school girls in his custody. And yet, that army and its Commander- in- Chief wants Nigerians to belief that it knows the location of the girls and that it can bring them home! One is of the view that a serious fighting force does not need to tell the nation that it knows where the kidnapped girls are and the manner it would secure their freedom. The army, if it is still a professional force will do its homework and work quietly to do its job and one day, at a well-planned press conference, unveil the kidnapped girls to the public, before they are sent back to their various homes. Yet, another problem with the Army under its present Commander-in-Chief is constant complain that it lacks funds to carry out its constitutional duties of providing national security which includes fighting the insurgency. And this is an army that has got close to N2 trillion specifically to fight insurgency, aside huge budgetary allocations in the past to equip the latter and provide welfare for its personnel. The issue is that like the nation under the present administration, the military is reeling with corruption such that much of the huge allocation for its operations are stolen by those entrusted with its management. In such a situation, a good Commander- in- Chief would find out what happened to the funds and carry out a disciplinary sacking of officers and leadership of the institution and redeployment of those who deserve redeployment. However, with the tolerant attitude of the current president towards corruption, this would never happe
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 07:13:51 +0000
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