SHOCKING********** Boko Haram: Soldiers’ deaths alarming –Security expert …Says sect possesses superior arms A security expert, Mr. Max Gbanite, has said that the war against insurgency in the country cannot be won if the Nigerian military is not provided with the adequate arms, equipment and logistics to sustain and defeat the Islamist sect, Boko Haram. Gbanite who spoke with Sunday Sun in Abuja, noted that Boko Haram possess superior arms, adding that the casualty being sustained by the military was becoming very alarming and unacceptable. He advocated a more effective military relation and also suggested that governors should assist their colleagues in restoring infrastructure destroyed by the insurgents. Excerpts… The state of emergency declared by President Goodluck Jonathan some months back in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno has just been extended. Was the extension necessary? The issue of a state of emergency, I agree that it worked to an extent and should be extended. The extension in this particular case is following the establishment of a 7 Division of the Nigerian Army. My worry is, has the 7 Division been given adequate supplies, logistics, instruments of war to sustain and defeat Boko Haram? And my answer to that is, No. It has not been done and that worries me a lot. My definition of the war so far is that the military has been able to curtail the incessant bombings of various parts of the nation such as Kano, Borno and the Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs), have really lessened. Bombing of churches has really lessened. But there is a renewal in the group called Boko Haram and that renewal is that they fight in smaller cells, such as five, ten, fifteen-man cells, whereas the military fights in platoons and companies. At this particular point in time, the Boko Haram have superior materials in terms of arms. How did you arrive at that? From my investigations of what has been going on in the area, if a cell of 10 Boko Haram carries five (Rocket-Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and (General-Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) and the platoon or infantry soldiers carry one RPG, it means there is a superior fire power. The Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK47), which is the choice of weapon being used by the current military, is outdated. It has a 50-year technology and the bullet being used, the 769 millimeter bullet, is outdated. These are clones from Africa, from China and other areas of the world. That particular AK47, the original inventor, Russia, has stopped using it more than 50 years ago. Therefore, the Nigerian military should be able to upgrade to a superior firepower with armor piercing bullets. Secondly, if the Boko Haram use Hilux in the theatre of operation, the Nigerian army doesn’t have to use Hilux. Hilux are not build for maneuverability in theatres of operation, in landscapes like Yobe and Borno. We should look for superior vehicles and give to the military. But somewhere, government is alleged to be withholding money that is meant for this, which means the administration is paying lip service to the fight, destruction and stoppage of this insurgency once and for all. It is imperative that we fund the military adequately to be able to sustain the onslaught in order to remove political Boko Haram, remove criminal Boko Haram and isolate the ideological Boko Haram for the final elimination at our borders. In your own calculation, is the government winning the war against Boko Haram? It is difficult to calculate who is winning. But let me just say succinctly that the casualty being sustained by friendly forces, in this case, our military, is becoming very alarming and distasteful for me to accept as act of war. The Boko Haram have also found various ways to create serious panic within the system by attacking schools, attacking innocent civilians, attacking ceremonies. The fact that they are able to do that unseen by the military, tells me that the intelligence community needs to upgrade their tactics in terms of procurement of intelligence, both human intelligence and artificial intelligence and at this particular point in time, our military needs to have an airborne unit, a helicopter unit that will be able to rapidly deploy to the theatre of operation within seconds and be able to sustain result. This is not a symmetrical war where you use fighter jets from the Air Force to attack known locations of Boko Haram. No. You need lighter aircraft like helicopter gunships, which move swiftly and have rapid deployment of armament that can yield against these insurgents successfully. You need aerial reconnaissance, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that have infrared capabilities that can hover above 10,000 feet to be able to reconnoiter all the theatres of operation and know when Boko Haram is crossing our border and where they are going to carry out operations and be able to distinctively know who is wearing a true Nigerian army uniform and who is an impostor. It amazes me that even as of today, the military have changed the colour of their camouflage three times and each time they change it, Boko Haram like chameleon, assimilates, which means there are moles within the military that tell Boko Haram the type of camouflage that will be used. It really disturbs me that recently, Boko Haram were able to procure armoured vehicle to attack military positions before such armoured vehicles were destroyed. Where did they get these armoured vehicles? How did they enter Nigeria? That means there are people within the system that are funding and financing Boko Haram and giving us problems. What could be the aim of these people? That again remains for analysts to decipher what is their aim. Some people have said, according to Shekau, that their aim is the Islamization of Nigeria, which I very much doubt because majority of the people that have been killed are Muslims. Others have said destabilization of Nigeria. But the mere fact that Boko Haram has an international link with al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda and also with the Mali insurgency, it makes it very uncertain if you are going to have elections in Borno and Yobe in 2015. It also makes it uncertain if you are going to hold census in 2016 in those areas, and since those are Nigerian territories, the children in those areas remain Nigerians. They are potential Senators, potential medical doctors and potential Nigerian army candidates. Therefore, we must liberate those two states, including Adamawa because they are Nigerian territories. As a security expert, is the leader of the Boko Haram sect, Shekau, alive or dead? I am glad you said security expert and not an overseer. While I was in the United States of America, it was alleged that he had been shot and wounded in one of the theatres of operation and I tried to confirm that and nobody saw his body. But informants within their ranks confirmed to the military that he had been shot dead. Personally, if I were to advise the military, I would have created a unit that would go on a hunt for his body, excavate the body and bring him out. If he is buried in Cameroon, then it is easier. But you could not do these things because there is an absence of two things – aerial reconnaissance. Early in this war, we should have been able to bring in drones. I don’t know arrangements that are being made to procure same. I hope the Chief of Army Staff is doing that now. Secondly, we have not won or made any attempt at media narrative. But Boko Haram have won that war. They have effectively used the media, both print and broadcast. They have effectively used the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service, Voice of America (VOA) Hausa Service to articulate their position. But we are yet to articulate narratively through the media and be able to change the hearts and minds of their recruits and their followers and be able to say to them, Boko Haram is un-Islamic, Boko Haram is un-Nigerian and Boko Haram is not in your interest. But nobody is doing that and I want to believe that people in the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), are putting something together to that effect. But why must it be a fire brigade approach, instead of sitting down, getting the required expertise to move forward in this issue of narrative? Shekau recently released video messages. Are they real? Well, if the Nigerian army has a psychological department that is vibrant, then the psycho analyst will sit down and be able to study the body language of that video and compare it to previous videos of Shekau and bring in statisticians to be able to look at the physical similarities and ascertain if this man is alive or dead, if there is an impostor in this particular case or if there is a look-alike. Since they have failed to do that, it is difficult to believe that he is dead and also very difficult to ascertain that he is alive. Do you think the military was right to have claimed that he may have died when they didn’t have the fact? Well, the military did not say it verbatim that he is dead. They also alleged that they were told that he was dead. They had to give that information based on what they had because it can also be very tactical. That information could also be a base for the resurgence of civilian joint task force who now feel that Shekau is dead. We are now going to be good people and follow the system. It also has another end to it and for Boko Haram to be struggling to say that Shekau is alive, is also affecting their psyche because if he is alive, why continue to say he is alive. Let him continue to say that which he usually does. You don’t need to say he is alive. So, it’s a two-edged sword and the military did its duty in my own view in saying the man is dead. -DAILYSUN
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 06:41:15 +0000
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