Our military must not die

At the end of my paper, it was clear I had upset the military judging by the responses of the top most military officers who were participants at the conference. The session was so combative that I was forced to fight back by telling them not to invite me to future sessions if they only […]

At the end of my paper, it was clear I had upset the military judging by the responses of the top most military officers who were participants at the conference. The session was so combative that I was forced to fight back by telling them not to invite me to future sessions if they only want to hear what would please them. Today, some two years later, I am happy I raised those fundamental even if uncomplimentary issues especially my specific criticism of posting military operatives to election venues as if election was a battle rather than a game. If there was any doubt then as to whether I was fair to the military it is obviously no longer so now. To start with, I was not and am still not alone with that standpoint. For example, at an interview he granted to the media to mark his 73rd birthday anniversary last September, former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) was more apt on the subject when he said it was dangerous to involve the military in elections and that the Nigerian Military would soon be compromised.
The reactions of several analysts to recent political events in the nation have no doubt confirmed our fears. Indeed, the recent statement by Chief John Oyegun, the chairman of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) accusing the military of colluding with the ruling party to derail our democracy is obviously instructive. Oyegun’s accusation was probably quite pointed but he was not the first to disparage the military. Much earlier, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had through Olisa Metuh, the spokesman of the party called on the Military High Command to investigate the role of the Brigade Commander of the Nigerian Army in Benin City for allegedly using the Military against the PDP during the Edo governorship elections of 2012. There was also the vexed issue of some top opposition politicians who were disallowed entry into Anambra, Ekiti and Osun States during elections whereas their counterparts from the ruling party were not similarly stopped.  It is thus not uncharitable to suggest that by accepting to get involved in elections, the military had unwittingly created an opportunity for politicians to accuse it of working for one side against the other.
In my 2013 lecture, I had also questioned the wisdom of handing over commonplace police assignments to the military. To me, sending the military to ‘check points’ on the roads could tempt them to collect illegal tolls and thereby damage the high reputation of the military. Again I was not alone. If mine was a feeling, the reputable Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar was dead sure that falling standards in the military was attributable to what he called “dubious recruitment method, poor training and equipment, lack of motivation and deployment of soldiers to purely police duty like checkpoints at which they are seen soliciting and receiving bribe”. This watering down of professionalism became apparent in the excuses, complaints and self denials in the performance of military duties that hitherto were not in the character of our famous military.  
Apart from negative comments by some Nigerians about the military, top international figures appeared quite contemptuous of our military. In a testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last year, the American Air Force Chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh III, stated that the Nigerian military was, “quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage”. There was also the revelation by a former British military attaché to Nigeria, Col. James Hall that Nigerian peacekeepers in Mali at a time, had to buy pick-up trucks while their armor kept breaking down.. Thus the often repeated calls for public understanding that the Boko Haram insurgency was unconventional guerilla warfare do not educate anyone. Many lay persons could in earnest expect in a war, surprises like ambush or insider abuses like betrayal. For this reason, people look forward to only stories of how our invincible military thrashed the opponent and not an analysis of the difficulties of engaging an enemy. That in fact, is in line with what society expects of any of its institutions. People are for instance always interested in our super eagles coming back home from any encounter with the cup; no one is interested in how justifiably demoralized the team was during a contest. However, we are not unaware that Nigeria has many weak institutions but our military has never been among them and it should never be allowed to so degenerate.
One way of doing this is for well meaning Nigerians to join in the call for the military to quit election venues and police check points. Otherwise whatever negative comments people make about them would easily be believed as is done to an institution with a dented image. For example, analysts find it quite easy to believe that our military is not interested in ending the Boko Haram insurgency. The political opposition may have been exaggerating when it said that during the recently held Osun State Governorship election, the military deployed only 30,000 men to fight Boko Haram while 75,000 of its operatives were deployed to secure the election. Apart from the fact that the allegation was not refuted, there is doubt if anyone disbelieves it. Our military deserves a better image.
In 1997, I was selected along with 3 other technical experts on elections to coordinate political broadcasts for the first post civil war elections in Liberia. While there I saw how the effectiveness of the Nigerian-led ECOMOG made the average Nigerian a proud citizen. When added to the feat of our military in Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe as well the distinctions recorded by our peace keeping forces across the globe, every well meaning Nigerian must speak out against the declining fortunes of our military. It is an institution that must neither die nor be rubbished.