A Senator’s narrow escape

The Senator from Borno State was on a mission to commiserate with some of his constituents who had earlier been attacked by Boko Haram insurgents.  The circumstances of the air assault are unclear, but according to reports, four bombs were dropped at Senator Ndume’s convoy. Mercifully, none hit target and no life was lost. Reacting […]

The Senator from Borno State was on a mission to commiserate with some of his constituents who had earlier been attacked by Boko Haram insurgents.  The circumstances of the air assault are unclear, but according to reports, four bombs were dropped at Senator Ndume’s convoy. Mercifully, none hit target and no life was lost. Reacting to the incident military authorities explained that the incident was a mistake and a blunder on the part of the pilot, and that it would be wrong to think the military intended to kill the Senator.  
The military needs to be more forthcoming on details in order to disabuse people’s mind that the Senator was not a target after four bombs were fired at his convoy that consisted of a handful of vehicles. This is even more so when it is considered that Ndume was at one time arraigned in court on allegation of links to Boko Haram insurgency. The case is still pending.  
In the aftermath of the incident, and identification of the bombs as belonging to the Nigerian Air Force by a security detail, Ndume wisely sought safety from a military base along his route. The military personnel at the base in turn tried to establish contact with the pilot of the fighter jet, ostensibly to warn him, to no avail, of the near-disaster on the ground. The Senator was understandably dismayed at the development that could also have traumatized his travelling companions.
 It was not the first time such an attack would occur. Sometime last October, a wedding party came under similar attack; military officials released a statement later saying the guests were mistaken for a band of Boko Haram insurgents. Such episodes call into question the competence of the air force arm of the Joint Task Force (JTF) to operate effectively from the air in its campaign against the insurgency.
They also indicate that JTF’s air operation has some challenges in pinpointing the exact nature of moving objects on the ground, which also betrays absence of coordination between reconnaissance aircraft on the lookout for insurgents and the control and command station on the ground on the same mission. Air operations are meant to complement the ground operation in order to expedite the defeat, at least the containment, of the insurgency and neutralise. Yet by mistaking commuters and others going about their businesses for insurgents, it clearly indicates that parameters for air operation in the region need to be sorted out to avert disasters from occurring.
The military authorities should look into the issue expeditiously in order to solve it. In an era of precision weaponry, it must not be said that the Nigeria Air force, at least its unit operating in the North East, would conflate wedding parties with armed insurgents. It may very well be that the cause lies in shortage of requisite equipment needed to undertake air surveillance assignments and also inadequate training for specific tasks, in which case future operations should ensure the JTF first avails itself of the required equipment and its members have obtained the training necessary to mount such an operations successfully.
It bears repeating that too many innocent lives have been lost, some unnecessarily, in the campaign against insurgency to allow ill-trained pilots flying poorly equipped fighter jets to further wreak havoc and devastation on the people. One way to avoid this is for the military authorities to ensure that there is coordination between all operating units in its campaign against insurgency. This would include building trust among the units such that all of them would be privy to whatever each unit is doing. If this is done well, a pilot should be able to confirm from ground operation whether or not a target is fair game.