Nigerian military have lost its professionalism-NDA don

Senior Lecturer and former Head of the Department of Political Science and Defence Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy, late Dr. Moses Tedheke, in this interview with The UNION, Saturday, May 31,2014, described insurgent and militant activities in parts of the country as the product of a class struggle between a corrupt elite group and the ordinary Nigerian people. He also believes that the Nigerian military has lost its professionalism, explaining why it has not been able to combat the Boko Haram insurgent activities.

Why do you think the Military has not been able to combat the Boko Haram menace which has seemingly become intractable?

The current spate of insurgency in this country, especially the angle it has taken with Boko Haram, is an issue that must be addressed by Nigerian State. It is am issue which has to do with the economy. We fought a civil war over economic issues but some people said that it was not economic, that it was ethnicity, cultural differences and so forth, whereas the real issue was the economy. It was the collapse of the economic bases of the regions and then the appreciation of the centre before the civil war that led to the first coup and the counter coup of 1966 when the regional economies were stripped naked. When they had no muscle to move, when the prices of agricultural products collapsed in the international market.

If you look at the crises that have engulfed this country from the period of Maitatsine, you discover that they have been the result of economic downturn. In the case of Maitatsine, some people were recruited, and they were assured of the good life. They turned to Maitatsine and looked up to him as a saviour before it took a religious dimension. Now, the same script is playing out again under the Boko Haram insurgency. What is happening today is that the economic transformation that is supposed to take place is not taking place. There is corruption in the land. It is part of the infrastructure that encourages terrorism. Corruption has created loopholes retarding economic transformation. It is not only in this country that such things have happen, but we should look at the history of other countries and how they were able to resolve the issue.

“How could we dwell on Abuja while kidnapping and insurgency are going on in Borno and other parts of the north? How can they be bombing Abuja which is the center of our security? It means we are not secure. That is the biggest problem. The political class must ensure that the military is properly trained and re-trained to combat insurgency in our country“

In England, from 1644 to 1688, that was the period of Cromwell and how was the crises solved? For 44 years, it was killings every day throughout England; it was industrialization and economic transformation that solved the problem. They created employment opportunities for the people and this brought solution to those problems. And it was the same thing in France. From the period of the French Revolution in 1789 to 1871 there were killings every day. It led to the civil war in France, it led to the class struggle in France. It was Karl Marx that classified it in a proper manner that it should be. It was the same thing in Malaysia where the five ethnic Malays were killing each other but today, they are in peace. In Nigeria, the elite and the ruling class have refused to make history by turning the economy around and that is the greatest problem we are facing. And this is the issue that is supposed to be discussed at the ongoing National Conference.

The lack of purposeful development in the country is what encouraging the Niger Delta militancy and Boko Haram. If Boko Haram is not a religious thing, how did it come up? Because they don’t believe in Western education, and they said it is forbidden and that was why they tore their certificates as well as to rebel against it because it was not providing the necessary succour?

The immigration recruitments where seven million people applied for a jobs and four million people were invited for only 4000 vacant positions. That tells you that there is a huge unemployment situation in Nigeria which portends great danger for this country and that’s exactly what is propelling the Boko Haram. The elite are the problem and this has to do in the kidnapping of our girls and attacks on everybody, everywhere and we  are no longer safe, because some people are so greedy. They are so greedy to the extend that they don’t want to invest money to transform our country so that we can reduce the impact of this insurgency in the land.

But the government, through the security agencies, has been tackling the insurgency but there seems to be no end?

What happened is that the Third World military or security outfit lacks the necessary science and technology to be able to get at the root is the cause of the these problems, to be able to crub this militancy. That’s exactly what is happening in Nigeria, even though we pride ourselves as having one of the finest military in the world. That was why Moa Tse Tung said that they were among the Third World strategies in combatting the opposition elements sponsored and funded by the external powers. So, they had to adopt a guerrilla strategy and when it suited them, they adopted the conventional warfare strategy and then the guerrilla warfare strategy. That was why they were able to defeat their foes who later fled to what is known today as Taiwan. As somebody who is lecturing the cadets, I have always told them that the Nigerian military needs a dual strategy as a Third World military that lacks the requisite technology. It was that dual strategy that the Vietnamese used to defeat the Americans and it is that dual strategy that we can apply. It is the same dual strategy the Iran is evolving to tackle the super powers that are against them. If we have this dual strategy then we will be able to recruit a division of plain -clothed soldiers who will infiltrate Maiduguri where Boko Haram members have their base. I went to South Africa recently, you see a South Africa soldier speaks about six or seven languages. It is right time for us to adopt a multi-lingual military instead of this our secluded existence as a nation. We should adopt the South African example where a soldier speaks six or more languages. Assuming our soldiers can speak about one quarter of our languages, these Boko Haram issue will be a thing of the past. We have to create a modern Army. A modem Army that is also a people’s Army.

So, they have to adopt the dual strategy that would stem the tide of Boko Haram and the Niger Delta militants. That is how you build a nation. Let our police speak not less than four or five languages in this country so that they can be more efficient in their duty. This is how we combat such insurgency like we are facing to-day with ease. When we send plain -clothed soldiers and policemen into those places, that can speak those languages, people would assume that they are from those places and would be more useful in facing insurgents in those areas.

The Boko Haram insurgents recently abducted more than 200 school girls from Chibok, Borno State, and this has attracted international condemnation and support. How can the government get our girls back?

I am afraid of the strategy the Nigerian military is using to rescue those girls. During the civil war, I was in the Three Marine Commando, under the command of Benjamin Adekunle. We had to condone off the border between Nigeria and Cameroun. We were the people who captured the places up to Ikom. We had to struggle to block the borders. And that is exactly what the Nigeria military, police and other security agencies should have done, to block the borders and engage in the recruitment of more people. Today, recruitment has been politicised. Recruitment even into the military is politicised. I asked some people who wanted to join the military of their experiences. They told me that they had to give money before you are recruited.
You can see that the whole thing is messed up. And we are supposed to recruit enough people to seal up our borders so that, for example, between our border and Cameroun nobody can infiltrate. I said this almost about five or six months ago, that if we have to overcome this Boko Haram insurgency that is what we should do. Now, because Nigerian borders are so porous, arms can come in unrestricted and it is a very serious problem. Another thing is that the military must now leave this bread and butter military because we are at a stage of bread and butter military that is what is destroying the military. And the politicians are also destroying the military with bread and butter. Where
can you find the house of Aguyi Ironsi. The Plateau people had to donate money to build a house for Gen. Yakubu Gowon. But, today you have Generals and even Colonels who have hotels everywhere in the country and even abroad. That is why it is now bread and butter military. And this is a hindrance towards real military efficiency and professionalism. You see, many of them are afraid to go to Borno State, to face Boko Haram. Just recently, Salihu, my Cadet who was in the 41/42 Regular Course was killed, and we went for his burial here in Kaduna. Many people are afraid now, because everything is now bread and butter. We are not nationalistic.
The Nigerian military is not nationalistic. Even it saved this country from a break up it is still the military that has not been able to resolve the Boko Haram insurgency. It is because, is a bread and butter military that is why we find ourselves in this situation we are now. Until the military returns to professionalism, the military can’t face a serious combat. That’s exactly what is happening. How can they stay in Abuja while kidnapping and insurgency are going on in Borno and other parts of the north? How can they be bombing Abuja which is the centre of our security? It means we all are not secured. That’s the biggest problem. The political class must ensure that the military is properly trained and re-trained to be able to combat and resolve the problems of terrorism and insurgency in our country. Foreigners can’t do it for you in a holistic way. Now, we are going to America, Britain, France and other countries looking for help. I am afraid of the ideas we have in our heads which are very funny one. I am really afraid if the Nigerian military can secure the release of these girls. The initial mistake has been made. Immediately the girls were abducted, for almost four hours when they packed these girls into vehicles, the military ought to have reacted instantly and locate where they were taken in Sambisa forest. That should not have taken more than a day to apprehend the insurgents. Now, they have given them a lot of opportunity, we heard that they are moved some of the girls to Cameroun, Niger and Chad. How can we get all of them back ? So, you see it is a failure of the Nigerian military. This is not the kind of military when I joined the military for the civil war and I fought the civil war successfully, and we made this country one instead of allowing the secessionist tendency of the defunct Biafra. You see, the irony of it all is that in foreign countries, our military do well and I do not know why they cannot replicate their performance in this situation that we find ourselves today.

With the National Conference, do you think we should expect a turnaround in the economy based on recommendation they may make?

Well, I do not think that anyone in this country should take this conference serious going by what happened to our previous conferences. Even the one that was organised by Obasanjo, and those of the military did not see the light of the day in terms of implementation. In fact,  do you think there is any need for a national conference if there is a serious and focused leadership. As it happened in Malaysia before Matin Mohammed came in, Malaysians were killing each other.

Mohammed came as a leader in that country, he did not hold national conferences, but he put the right policies in place that made it possible for jobs to be created and the five ethnic Malays that were killing each other stopped to kill each other. They now see each other as brothers because there are opportunities for them to actualize their dreams. There is a saying that hungry man is an angry man. When you are hungry, you can kill. That was what the Malaysians were doing but when Matin Mohammed came with succour in economic transformation, industrialisation, he transformed the economy. As we talk now, that country has established a giant factory for palm oil processing in the Netherlands that supply the whole of Europe with palm oil.

And they have established a smaller one in South Africa to service the entire South African region. There is also information that Malaysians on the verge of building its own oil refinery. We were better off than Malaysia in the past, and we even assisted them. This situation here is what is creating Boko Haram, Niger Delta crisis and so on. It is because the elite in Nigeria operate a political economy of greed. The economic greed of the elite created what we are facing today.