No pot-bellied soldiers by December 15?

Chief of Army Staff Lt General Tukur Yusuf Buratai was reported yesterday as having issued an order to all soldiers to get rid of their pot bellies and get into proper shape by December 15. The chief reportedly said during his annual conference that many officers and soldiers have not paid the needed attention to […]

Chief of Army Staff Lt General Tukur Yusuf Buratai was reported yesterday as having issued an order to all soldiers to get rid of their pot bellies and get into proper shape by December 15. The chief reportedly said during his annual conference that many officers and soldiers have not paid the needed attention to their physical fitness. This, he said, has led many of them to become overweight with its attendant health risks.

I want to advise the Army Chief not to open a two front war. Has he finished his war against Boko Haram? He was given three months to end that war and when he is only half way through, he is trying to start another war which is more difficult than fighting insurgents. The army was complaining for many years that it was not trained to fight insurgents, that what it knows is conventional warfare. Luckily for it, Shekau made the mistake of graduating from urban guerilla warfare to conventional warfare in which he captured and tried to hold on to territory. That is why the army quickly reduced him to size, but now Buratai is trying to open another war which is even less familiar to the army—-fighting obesity and pot bellies.

Until recently, pot belly was a badge of honour in the army. There was an Army Chief of Staff who looked like he had an advanced pregnancy, so many officers and men followed suit. Now comes along an Army Chief who has the shape of a broomstick and he wants every other soldier to follow suit, for that matter by December 15. No way.