Magashi: Fighting insurgency to the next level

With the nomination and predictably, the eventual appointment of Major General Bashir Salihi Magashi (rtd) as the minister of Defence, President Muhammadu Buhari appeared to be clearly responding to the yearnings, opinions or criticisms that had  trailed the critical defense sector whose performance has concomitant effects on all and every facet of the nation. Yes, […]

With the nomination and predictably, the eventual appointment of Major General Bashir Salihi Magashi (rtd) as the minister of Defence, President Muhammadu Buhari appeared to be clearly responding to the yearnings, opinions or criticisms that had  trailed the critical defense sector whose performance has concomitant effects on all and every facet of the nation.

Yes, because of the faltering superstructure, insecurity spiralled, resistant and defiant of efforts by the security agents to tame it. While for example the inherited Boko Haram insurgency was still raging, albeit the fact that “it has been technically defeated”, or, “downgraded”, the hitherto unheard of phenomena of banditry and kidnapping for ransom, ravaging inter-communal conflicts and a plethora of other forms of security threats sprouted and are getting to a pandemic proportion.

Nobody was surprised that Dan Ali was dropped for retired Major General Bashir Salihi Magashi when the President announced members of the cabinet of his second term tenure.

If loyalty is a prime criterion in his consideration for critical appointments, Major General Salihi Magashi, from all accounts, has paid his dues. Starting from year 2003 when he was a founding member and a leading light of The Buhari Campaign Organisation (TBO), the retired army general was consistently in Buhari’s political exploits in the defunct ANPP, CPC and APC, the platform on which the president came to power in 2015. Talking of suitability, competence and experience, Magashi has them all as they come, thus making him one of the square pegs in square holes in the Next Level cabinet.

A lawyer with years of experience in legal practice, he is also not a novice on the political terrain being a governor of old Sokoto state. A former Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Commander of the Brigade of Guards, a GOC and a Commander of a multinational peacekeeping Force in Liberia, General Magashi is coming to the job with a robust background in military service.

In Borno State, the hotbed of Boko Haram which he visited days after resumption, Magashi demonstrated that he is in a familiar turf as commander in charge of the nation’s defence apparatchiks. He told the military top brass in no uncertain terms for instance, that they should buckle up for a paradigm shift in the approach to the war against insurgency. With a stern warning against bickering and rivalry among the Service Chiefs, he announced his plans of turning around the command structure to make for cohesion, unity of purpose and focus on goals in line with traditions of combined military operations.

Very pertinent, General Magashi addressed the critical issues of motivation and morale of the troops. With assurance that he has the expressed order of the President, Commander-in-Chief, he told soldiers fighting the insurgency and other security situations elsewhere in the country that they will no longer have the problems of payment of salaries, allowances and related benefits of gratuity and pension.

Certain of delivering on the presidential order, Magashi declared that, very soon, the Boko Haram insurgency will be finally crushed and, “the glorious, happy days of Borno restored.” A thunderous “amen” to followed this prayers, or inspiration from a veteran, war tested general not known for flippancy or wishful thinking.

While he is on it, General Salihi Magashi is expected to go the extra mile to make a difference. He must give a boost to the task of finally and truly stamping out the madness called Boko Haram and similarly nightmarish incidents of carnage elsewhere in the country. It is therefore, heartwarming that the minister has identified the challenges of low morale, lack of requisite motivation by way of welfare of soldiers and paucity of modern as against antiquated weapons which have retarded the fighting capacity of troops in the front lines.

The NEXT LEVEL in the war against insurgency, banditry and related crimes must be taken away from the razzmatazz of unrewarding, delusionary planes of propaganda and rhetoric. May Magashi be divinely guided to succeed in notching the antiterrorism campaign to the next level.

Ayuba Ahmad, a public analyst, wrote from Kaduna.