Hurray, we are winning!

No, Boko Haram fighting cadres have not had a twinge of conscience about the destruction they are wreaking on Nigeria, rather for the first time in many months they are being pummelled and bludgeoned by the combined superior fire power of the Nigerian, Chadian, Nigerien and Cameroonian forces. So sustained and unrelenting has been the […]

No, Boko Haram fighting cadres have not had a twinge of conscience about the destruction they are wreaking on Nigeria, rather for the first time in many months they are being pummelled and bludgeoned by the combined superior fire power of the Nigerian, Chadian, Nigerien and Cameroonian forces. So sustained and unrelenting has been the latest onslaught against Boko Haram that it has led to appreciable gains of recovery of many towns and cities hitherto under the insurgents’ rule.
And so Baga, Marte, Gamboru as well as Dikwa, Malam Fatori, Gwoza and Bama have all been liberated-seemingly all in one fell swoop. The residents of these towns and cities who had been made to run pell-mell for their dear lives are finding their ways back to their homes and hopefully to normalcy and peace. So, on this score I am raising a toast to the Nigerian military for its demonstration of valour and for its members acquitting themselves so gallantly in the process of recovery of those parts of the fatherland.
And so, hip hip hip hurray! for rekindling hope that the enemies and agents of dismemberment would not succeed and cannot get a foothold to sow their strange brand of extremism whose only justification are death and destruction. Yes, the Nigerian military need to be toasted. For a while, not a few patriots feared for the revered institution—for its wellbeing that is, when contrary to expectations strange stories of soldiers sent to do battle with the insurgents turned tail and took to their heels in messy disarray and in no particular formation were rife. Thus, allowing the insurgents to have a field day to perpetrate their bloodcurdling act of mayhem time and time again upon several towns and cities. Being the military many had thought soon it would sort itself out and come to grips with its duty of maintaining the integrity and inviolability of Nigeria’s territory properly.
But alarm turned to panic when rather than getting a firm hold of itself, mutiny  surfaced with soldiers not only refusing to obey superior orders to proceed to combat but indeed threatened the life of their superior officer by shooting at his vehicle. The officer himself cheated death by whiskers. This made Nigerians to begin to ask since when did matters come to this sorry pass, when the lower rank not only refused order but shoot at officers to the bargain. Where had the famed discipline gone? How could matters get this bad so suddenly for an institution that not too long ago was rated as one of the world’s best and for good reasons too, after having performed pacification duties in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur-Sudan, and much earlier in the Congo in the 60s?
Soon it became clear that the military was suffering from an acute bout of low morale in the rank and file, brought about by insufficient provision of combat materials and essential arms and ammunition. Indeed there was an apocryphal tale of soldiers going to confront the insurgents with, hold your breath, bathroom slippers; and that bullets were not enough, hence whenever they exhausted the ones they had, the fighters thought it made eminent sense to retreat as they could not fight the insurgents who were armed to the teeth anyway, with bare hands.
To arrest the rot, the military quite rightly set about to enforce the rules in order to maintain discipline. A number of those who refused to fight were made to face court martial, but thankfully so far decisions handed down are only dismissals, no one has been made to lose his life yet. For an institution whose essence is based upon the command structure, mutiny and refusal to fight are grave offences that invite the sternest punishment. Perhaps, the delay in imposing the ultimate and summary punishment on the offenders is in recognition of the extenuating circumstances underpinning their case, demonstrating that the military authorities are fully aware that theirs, after all, is a human organisation, and that in the face of grave odds, self preservation is very paramount, which explains the seeming cowardly attitude of its fighting men. Yet not doing so in the circumstances would have caused certain death for them.
And nothing buttresses this point succinctly than the huge gains made by the Nigerian military against the insurgency. It is proof that when well kitted and well provisioned for battle, Nigeria’s soldiers would always acquit themselves. Let’s hope the lesson has been learnt-that the military must never be made to suffer and scrounge for materials needed for battle. Funds earmarked to keep the military at the highest level of preparedness should be applied appropriately, in order to keep morale among the rank and file high for them to discharge their duty as they should.
Now if the initial bungling by the armed forces was aimed at proving that the effectiveness of a fighting force is a function of its level of preparedness, in arms and ammunition, the point has been made. But the top echelon of the armed forces should share in the blame of the conundrum their institution found itself in-that of not having adequate arms and ammunition and not being able to kit its officers and men.
If as everyone knows, for over a decade defence and security took the largest share of budgetary allocations, yet arms and ammunitions were not being replaced and replenished and/or modern cutting edge ones acquired to replace obsolete ones, it is the duty of this level of officers to  demand and insist that the proper thing be done. At that level they owe it as a duty to themselves, their institution and the nation to look anyone in the face, no matter how highly placed, and insist the armed forces be put at a combat ready level.
Because they did not do so over several years and have allowed budgeted funds to disappear into private pockets or some bottomless holes, Nigeria perilously came close to being a banana republic where some hashish smoking gangs mouthing some claptrap about issues they barely understood, for which they imperil innocent people’s lives. Now that it is clear the military could have done something to squelch the insurgency at its early stage and save everyone the gruesome ordeal witnessed so far if it had the weapons, it follows that those whose responsibility it was to provide the necessary ammunition, are guilty of criminal negligence or something worse. That it had to take  a low level war and the disgrace that came with the difficulty of suppressing it to wake us up to the need to prioritise equipping the military, shows that matters are really not as it should be.
Nigeria, the giant of Africa, for 5 years was tested and was found woefully floundering and as a result became a laughing stock of the world. This must not be allowed to continue, and the only way to do that is to make those who made Nigeria the butt of derision pay for their greed.