Our soldiers need hardware, not hollow pledges

The next day, the soldiers were returned home through Mubi, Adamawa State, in military trucks. On entering Cameroun, the soldiers were promptly disarmed and given shelter at a school in Maroua by Cameroon officials. It is not unusual for troops to beat a retreat or make an unscheduled detour in order to outwit the enemy […]

The next day, the soldiers were returned home through Mubi, Adamawa State, in military trucks. On entering Cameroun, the soldiers were promptly disarmed and given shelter at a school in Maroua by Cameroon officials. It is not unusual for troops to beat a retreat or make an unscheduled detour in order to outwit the enemy and secure victory. ‘Victory’ is hard to fathom in this case though.
There is no discernible result that would mark out the retreat as a strategic move, because realising the fleeing soldiers were stuck in Cameroun, vehicles had to be sent to bring them back.  A more plausible explanation would fit into the conventional assessment that the soldiers were outgunned by a better-armed or more motivated enemy, as ragtag as they may seem to be.    
The point that has been made on behalf of the military is that a conventional warfare is quite different from engaging a band of well-armed insurgents; the tactics and strategies required by one would not work for the other. Moreover, not expecting that the day would come when some disaffected citizens would mount a vicious insurgency to seek to dismember Nigeria, personnel only trained and prepared for conventional warfare. This apparent oversight needs to be addressed, because what we have now is the less than appropriate response of the military to the blistering scorched-earth campaign the insurgents have mounted for the past five years. On this score, however, many have wondered how long it would take for an organised formal fighting force to retrain and adapt its cadre to the challenge that the brutal insurgency presents and be grounded sufficiently in it enough to confront the insurgents and defeat them.
A recurrent theme in the soldiers’ performance has been paucity of arms and ammunition and general military hardware. The claim has been that Nigeria’s soldiers carry less sophisticated, and generally not enough, weapons when they confront the insurgents.
 In the past three months, three incidents approximating mutiny by soldiers have occurred, all of which feature personnel seeking to force the military authorities to redress the awkward situation of going to battle with inadequate weapons and unpaid welfare packages. Going into battle in the absence of appropriate weaponry, or not having adequate weapons, would amount to herding soldiers to their certain death.  
 While the soldiers’ behaviour in devising the ‘tactical manoeuvre’ technique cannot be said to be chivalrous, it would be wrong to see it as cowardly either. To reverse this dispiriting scenario, the government and the military would have to undertake a wholesale examination of its operation against the insurgency, and root it out once and for all. Whatever stumbling block is impeding acquisition of the necessary weapons and other wherewithal to mount a credible and sustained campaign must be removed, so as to give the needed impetus to the war against the insurgency.
Provision of the required arms and ammunition and appropriate training in the tactics suitable for this sort of warfare would necessarily boost the morale and confidence of the officers and men who have been chosen to do the fighting. If done judiciously, it would bring the seeming intractable internecine war to an end.  The government and the military authorities must also recognise the danger the insurgency portends for the country, the longer it lasts. Above all, the government should rise above seeing the insurgency through the prism of politics, and deal with it for what it really is: a dangerous thorn that must be removed.