How to crush Boko Haram in six weeks – Col Kontagora

As a retired colonel and an artillery officer in the Nigerian Army, how would you assess the military in its fight against the insurgents in the last six years?This is a broad question that demands a broad answer. The Nigerian armed forces have challenges, we have to accept that. In previous interviews, I did mention […]

As a retired colonel and an artillery officer in the Nigerian Army, how would you assess the military in its fight against the insurgents in the last six years?
This is a broad question that demands a broad answer. The Nigerian armed forces have challenges, we have to accept that. In previous interviews, I did mention that war on insurgency is not a one-day affair. I did remind Nigerians that the war would last longer than they were expecting. The insurgents are always a step ahead of conventional forces because they determine the theatre of war and the targets they want to attack.  They also determine when to carry out the attack and how to attack. They are always ahead and, therefore, containing an insurgency using the conventional forces always demands a large number of troops.
For instance, the insurgents have determined where to fight now. They would attack Yobe to the North, then hit Mubi from the East part of that flank and occasionally wants to prop into Maiduguri. So you could see the spread now, from Yobe to Adamawa. That means to fight insurgency you need troops to man and defend almost every village in that area.
Unfortunately the Nigerian Army doesn’t have the number of troops to do that. Unfortunately soldiers cannot be manufactured in 24 hours. We need about six to nine months to train a civilian into a soldier. This is a constraint.
If we can remember, these are groups that were once resident in Maiduguri, Kano and other cities before the military flushed them out. This is an achievement because the military cannot go pursuing somebody they cannot identify. It is not easy because if care is not taken, they could kill innocent people. The insurgents can determine when and how to attack whether in civilian or in rag-tag army dresses. They are not as equipped and as well dressed as we are.
We are still battling the militants who are inflicting havoc on our economic resources in the Niger Delta. We are still trying to contain some ethnic and religious tension around the country. We are still battling to contain herdsmen and farmers conflicts. All these require troops. I had once said our Defence budget is too small to meet up with our current defence challenges. When people say they have been spending too much money on the military I keep saying it is not enough. If we want the Army Chief to build the troops to about 200,000 do we know what it will cost?
Again we are saddling them with political conflicts. In the last five to six years the military has tried within its own capability.

 

Given all these, would you say the military is at a disadvantage to carry out its responsibility to the extent that it recently claimed it could not guarantee security during elections in the country?
Nigeria is not one local government. I just narrated the demand on the armed forces. They are on the highways checking the infiltration of insurgents, as they are in many communities trying to quell ethnic, religious or other misunderstandings. They are in that flank from Yobe to Adamawa trying to contain insurgents.
If you check events now in the sub-region, in the Lake Chad basin, there is an understanding to use multi-national forces to contain Boko Haram. It is not a failure on our side, but these are insurgents that operate in four countries. If you hit them hard in one country, they will migrate to other countries. The best thing is to involve all neighbouring countries in the fight. If you check areas the Nigerian armed forces have to cover to contain the insurgency, they are very large. It is larger than the affected areas in Chad.
Cameroon is also battling with the spill-over from Nigeria. If the Cameroonians fail to participate, the insurgents will comfortably settle down there when we pound them here. Niger has decided finally to join. But who will still produce the bulk of the force? It is Nigeria. The military is moving troops from some of these areas to the North-east. I don’t think anything is being left behind to settle political crisis. Everybody is aware that the atmosphere was charged politically.
There are 774 local government areas in the country. Assuming in each local government we need at least 50 soldiers, where are we going to get them? Let’s even reduce it to 10; now 774 local governments times 10, we need nothing less than 7000 soldiers to protect INEC staff, electoral materials and the electorates. We can’t get that number even if we put the Immigration, Civil Defence, Prisons, Police and other security agents in it.
Now the Army said they cannot provide security. This is true. There are concerted efforts by neighbouring countries to defeat the insurgents and so much progress has been made. Fighting the insurgents from Niger will affect their logistics, fighting them from Chad will reduce their shell-saving. If they push them hard, I believe they will succumb in less than six weeks. This time, it is not like before that when they were hit hard they vanished into their camps in Niger and within a short time they have regrouped and were fighting back.  

Why did it take us this long to realize we didn’t have enough troops to engage the insurgents?
No, it is not that we don’t have men on ground, but the ones we have are doing their best to confront the challenge. I said we don’t have that required personnel as people think to man all the villages from Yobe and Borno to Adamawa. Do you know how large Borno is? Sambisa forest in Borno State alone is larger than Imo and Abia states put together. It is not a small area. The public are not supportive of the military efforts. I have not seen people volunteering to go and fight till the hunters decided to take part and we all saw the result.
 
The military said it has acquired new weapons to fight the insurgents. Do you think this will give it the upper hand to contain Boko Haram fighters within the six  weeks time-frame, considering the need to train troops on them?
These are not completely new technologies that will require training. It is just to augment the existing holdings. From the unfolding events over the last two weeks, with the support of our neighbours, many cities captured by Boko Haram have been liberated. If we push harder the few ones that are remaining will give in.

Most times, it is the insurgent who carry the battle to the military; atimes they sack soldiers from the barracks and they capture communities. How exactly would you say we have been getting our fight against the insurgents wrong?
We should not look at insurgents like regular soldiers or a regular force. They are not a regular force. An insurgent is an insurgent. He could be a journalist like you in an organization. He may be a store owner in the market or living among the people. He may be selling water because everything he does is in secret. When they want to plan an attack they may just say through a text message, ‘tomorrow let’s meet at so, so and so hotel or restaurant.’
If you discover the hotel where they are holding a meeting, can we bomb the place because of one person or two? That is the difficulty in fighting insurgency. Some of them are farmers, traders and transporters. When they want to attack, they mobilize themselves, launch the attack and afterwards they fizzle away.  It is easy now to contain them because they have moved to occupying cities and villages. We can now identify their bases and locations so it is easy now to contain them.
Now we know they are in Goza.  If the military launches an attack on Goza it is launching attack there to flush them out. If they are in Baga, if we launch an attack there we are doing the same thing to flush them out. If they are in Mongunu, there is nothing stopping us to go and flush them out in that place.
In the past, people were trading there, they were going in and coming out while doing their daily businesses. Can we just go in there and attack the place because we are suspecting that insurgents are there? That is why you see that atimes they are the ones attacking. We do the repelling and pursue them.  But on the way the insurgents could change their clothes and return to the community without being noticed. It is a very complex operation. We just have to be very patient, understand the situation and be supportive of the armed forces.

Do you agree that the military can defeat Boko Haram in six weeks before the general elections as the NSA, service chiefs and the Presidency have told the nation?
It is possible but difficult. Even after the six weeks, we should not go and sleep thinking there is no more insurgency. We should not make that mistake that they are all gone. No, we should not think that way. We are fighting an ideological group. It is a concept, it is a belief. There will still be sympathizers, not until everyone with that belief is wiped off the surface of the earth. There will still be some of them who will want to maintain that ideology.  
 
Mr President, in his recent media chat, was optimistic that the military in a few days would rescue the Chibok girls. How realistic is this given the number of months since they were taken and the possibility that they might have been moved from Sambisa forest?
Well, he is the Commander-in-Chief. We have no reason to doubt his optimism on the rescue of the Chibok girls. But considering the time they were captured to this time, so many events have taken place. The insurgents might have relocated them. There have been frequent raids by the Nigerian armed forces in Sambisa forest. Getting them all in one place or in one community may be extremely difficult. I am not saying you cannot get them back after the raid of that place but it would be difficult to rescue them back complete as a group and bring them back to their parents.

What would you say has made it difficult for the military to launch an operation to rescue the girls from Sambisa forest?
No, I disagree with you on that. Many of the battles now against the insurgents are taking place in Sambisa forest.

But that was months after the girls were taken. Why now?
Even then, they launched attacks in Sambisa forest. The girls are not in Sambisa forest for them to come and collect. We are fighting insurgents. They are as intelligent as we are. They are not fools, they have their goals for abducting those girls. After that abduction, there have been other abductions of young men and women in so many villages. Now that the armed forces are making it uncomfortable for them to establish camps and with the commitment of our neighbours to fight the insurgents we will find some of the girls.

Does attacking their camps mean winning the war against Boko Haram?
Once they don’t have camps or base, their planning and regrouping is disrupted. They said they have a state of their own. That means we are fighting that so- called state. So once we flushed them out of that state we send in the police to occupy it. We have to destroy the camps and rescue the women and children from the hardship and burden of the insurgents. In that process we may find some of the girls from Chibok community but to get them as a group will be difficult.

Chad recently entered into Nigeria’s territory to secure a community under the control of Boko Haram. Would you say this is normal given the present situation Nigeria has found itself?
But they are part of the Lake Chad Basin Joint Task Force. There are Chadians, Nigerien in Baga and Malanmafatori. They were equally attacked by Boko Haram for taking over those villages.  They are fulfilling their commitments to the Lake Chad Basin Commission. Already the African Union (AU) has authorized that. The last AU meeting said Nigeria must accept the AU force into its territory and we have no option than to accept. To what limit I think they will work out the details. Now they want us to do our own part because if they push them down and we cannot contain them we would make nonsense of the whole efforts.
Now all the mobilization of troops to protect and defend Yobe to Adamawa will determine the success of the general operation of the multi-national AU forces. If we don’t do our part once they push them to us, before we know it tomorrow they may be in Abuja. We have to prove our own efforts and that was why we had to pull resources from other internal conflicts in the country and move them to Maiduguri.  With this massive mobilization now and moving of troops to some sensitive areas there will be nothing left for political struggles during elections.
 
What is your take on moving in mercenaries from South Africa to help Nigeria fight insurgency?
We can source for expertise from anywhere in the world either in business, academics and even in war. There is nothing strange about it. If you source for experts they should operate within our operational instructions. We had mercenary pilots during the civil war. They were in Benin before the liberation of the East. So it is not new having expertise from any part of the world to support your business, academic work and even to prosecute a war.

Should the internally displaced persons be moved back to their places to vote?
They can vote wherever they are. Already provisions have been made by INEC for them to vote. Nobody wants to be a refuge anywhere. People are already going back. Nobody wants to abandon his home and farm; it is not easy. The Emir of Mubi has moved back to his domain. The Emir of Bama has relocated because nobody wants to be where he is not used to. Who wants to be in a camp? Away from the comfort and luxury of their homes, no matter how wretched it is they find comfort in their homes. I think with the present move by the armed forces a lot will be achieved. If they can contain the influx of arms and as well contain movement of mercenaries into Boko Haram a lot will be achieved.

With some happenings in recent times, the armed forces are said to have been dragged into politics. What is your view with regard to professionalism in the military?
Atimes we forget that we are in a state of war. When I hear people making comments they forget that our brothers somewhere in this country live with bullets flying over their heads daily.  We are here going on a campaign rally, singing praises but there are people out there who cannot even raise their heads; some have abandoned their homes in the same country.  
Any effort done to rescue and make life comfortable for that part of the country should not be seen on simple political terms. The armed forces of any country take orders from the Commander- In-Chief. The priority now is to contain Boko Haram and after that provide a safe environment for people to go and vote without being molested because of political inclination.  
I have read some highly inflammatory comments by highly placed Nigerians. I even read one on Monday on the net where someone was saying  that even if the elections are free and fair and a certain political party wins they would not agree. Now what foundation has he laid for his supporters? Is that not an insinuation for violence?

If the military must win the battle against Boko Haram in six weeks as it claimed, what should it do?
I would relieve the military of all check-points and deploy the police. There are many policemen doing VIP duties, let them do public duty. I would put them at the check-points. I would move the troops to the theatre of war. I would request the Inspector-General of Police to also train the MOPOL or any of his special forces to take over from the Army. Once the Army liberate a town they should hand it over to the police and advance forward.  
This way, the Army can remain as a strong force to fight and they can be able to surround the whole of Baga and search house-to-house for arms and insurgents.
Nigerians should not start counting how much is spent because we are spending on Nigerians and Nigeria. What those people carted away is more than what is required to save Nigeria. If this is done we will get to the root of these things. The public should know we are in a state of war. Once there are bullets flying in any part of the country we are in a state of war. The soldiers are on the offensive now and should be provided with all their needs. They should request for all they need and it should be given to them.