Maiduguri airport attack shouldn’t have happened

the nation had held its breath almost everyone expected that apart from demanding some accounting for this terrible failure of intelligence, a robust response-and marching orders- would be forthcoming.In the event, the meeting left more questions than it was expected to address in the aftermath of this latest infamy in Maiduguri, blamed on Boko Haram […]

the nation had held its breath almost everyone expected that apart from demanding some accounting for this terrible failure of intelligence, a robust response-and marching orders- would be forthcoming.
In the event, the meeting left more questions than it was expected to address in the aftermath of this latest infamy in Maiduguri, blamed on Boko Haram insurgents. The only statement the Chief of Defence Staff could make was a lethargic “the situation is being managed”.
That Maiduguri, a city under curfew for several months,  completely surrounded by various formations of the military, military police and civil police, a city in virtual lockdown, could come under such sustained attack over several hours calls to question the integrity of the military leadership and the intelligence services around them.
According to reports, security sources stated that “the insurgents had a field day throughout the time they operated, between 3.30am and 8 o’clock in the morning”, a period of almost five hours, and that a security official was reported to have said that it was only after the arrival of a military fighter jet from Yola, Adamawa State (half an hour away), that the insurgents retreated. The big question here is: retreated to where?
In fact, the question to precede this should be: how did the insurgents reach Maiduguri, and then the Air Force Base, in the first place, when the military had been telling the public that Boko Haram had been contained in a “little corner” around Sambisa Forest and the mountains around Gwoza far to the South of Borno State. The reality is that such statements have exposed the military to ridicule because they grossly underestimate the capacity of the enemy they face.
Borno State is one of the largest in the country by land mass, and the only way the insurgents could have launched such a daring attack from their “little corner” would have been to drop in from the air, which was not case. In a state fully blanketed in the cordon of emergency rule, how could the insurgents move from one place to another with such ease, when all other citizens cannot?
What mode of transportation did the insurgents use to avoid the inevitable indications of vehicular movement? What footpaths and cattle tracks did they use that were not known by the security forces? The most ironic of the reports say the insurgents “caught the military napping.” One would have thought that, in an emergency such as the North East in under, no one would be napping, let alone sleeping, to be caught in such a grievous condition.
With a trillion naira budget, the security forces need to show far more results than the nation is getting for its investment in them.
In retrospect, it seems the suspension of telecommunication, including telephone, services in state of emergency areas to deter the insurgents, could also have cut the other way, severely hamstringing the military. Members of the public could not reach the security forces to alert them on suspected movements of insurgents. The restoration of the services hours after the Maiduguri attack was admission that the strategy did not provide the desired results.
What is the way forward? One way would be to seek intelligence satellite coverage to monitor, deter and neutralise any insurgent activity.
This country has no tradition of leaders taking responsibility for failures in their areas of jurisdiction; otherwise the Maiduguri attack would have presented a perfect opportunity for some of them to consider their positions, or for the president to help them along.