We should drag in the French

I entirely agree with the call for government to do something drastic. People are dying every day from this insurgency. Sometimes you wonder if the insurgents really have any strategy. Pray, what is the ideological or military utility of exploding a bomb in an ATM queue? My only worry is that the people who are […]

I entirely agree with the call for government to do something drastic. People are dying every day from this insurgency. Sometimes you wonder if the insurgents really have any strategy. Pray, what is the ideological or military utility of exploding a bomb in an ATM queue? My only worry is that the people who are calling on government to take drastic action have not outlined what this should be. Some have said that President Goodluck Jonathan should order the military to liberate all the national territory that is under the insurgents’ control. I suspect that the President gave many such orders before he came to the same conclusion as a Lagos High Court judge who said in 1993, “A court does not give an order in vain.”
Like most Nigerians, I was slow to realise that the Nigerian military is in far worse shape than we ever thought. In terms of manpower, training, motivation, morale and equipment it appears to be in a very bad state. Many Nigerians were thinking that if the army could win the civil war 44 years ago against a large and very determined Biafran Army, it would make mincemeat of Boko Haram today. Since 1970, the Nigerian Army has dazzled us with the razor sharp edges of soldiers’ uniforms, with the shine of soldiers’ boots and with the precision of its parades. It even got a standing ovation for the sharpness of its drills during the October 1, 2010 independence parade. We were also dazzled with the way the army deployed tanks on our streets during coups d’état; how it efficiently enforced dusk to dawn curfews and how easily it suppressed student revolts and inter- communal clashes.
Three years ago, then Army Chief Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika said during a visit to Maiduguri that Boko Haram should be man enough to come out of its hiding places and confront the army head on. I was personally fooled by that boast. Now, since last year the insurgents have been fighting a conventional war. At the last count they are holding territory the size of three small states. You would have thought by now that a column of T-55 tanks would have rolled through that territory and easily liberated it, but that is not happening.
I have been wondering what more domestic resource can do the magic. It cannot be money. A government with an annual budget of $30 billion does not lack the money to purchase any grade of weapons if it makes it a priority. Some say that the Nigerian Army is down to 70,000 men from a Civil War peak of 250,000. Well, the best estimate of Boko Haram’s numbers is 10,000 men, many of them abducted recruits. Going forward, I think the government should rebuild the army to half a million men, though that will take some time. If however the best explanation for the military’s weakness is that morale has collapsed, then that’s a problem that will take ages to solve.
We can’t wait until that happens. What do we do then? Since nobody is willing to say what “drastic action” is it that the government should take, I will like to borrow the notorious phrase of commercial motorcyclists and “put head forward” with a very controversial suggestion. I suggest that we should invite a foreign military power to come in here and blast the insurgents out of their foxholes and forest redoubts.  Our soldiers should provide some flanking cover, mop up the insurgent remnants and administer the liberated communities.
I know that many readers are right now holding their noses with disgust at this suggestion but I am forging ahead. I am already trying to shortlist the foreign powers that have the military wherewithal to accomplish this task in a short time. There are several of them but then, most of them probably cannot be lured into Nigeria to pull our chestnuts out of the Boko Haram fire.  Countries do not maintain expensive military outfits in order to solve the problems of others. But there must be a way.
If Boko Haram had come before 1989 we could have used an ideological pretence. All we had to do was to declare Nigeria to be a socialist state and the Soviet Red Army would blast its way through Sambisa under the Brezhnev Doctrine of “defending the gains of socialism” throughout the world.” Conversely, we could lure in the US Army by telling the White House that our country is being threatened with a Communist takeover. Somali President Siad Barre did both in 1975-80 and lured in both superpowers.
Moving on to the shortlist, the Americans can rout Boko Haram in no time but they won’t do it, unless if we are lucky that Shekau explodes an IED near the Capitol. President Barack Obama was elected to end his country’s involvement in foreign wars, not to expand them. Besides, after last week’s midterm elections he is lamer than a lame duck. What about Britain? They may not have Ghurkha Regiments these days but the post-imperial British Army is still potent, as we saw in the Falklands in 1982. It is not easy to lure the Brits into anything that Americans are not leading.  For starters, Nigerian students must be made to apologise to Westminster for demonstrating in 1964 to stop our far-sighted First Republic leaders from signing the UK-Nigeria Defence Treaty.
The Israeli Army can easily drive out Boko Haram but they are too busy keeping an eye on Hamas, Hizbollah and the Temple Mount. The Russian Army can very well chase out Boko Haram but Vladimir Putin’s eyes are on Kiev, not Mubi. I suspect the German Bundeswehr or the Japanese Self-Defence Forces can also do so but both of them have constitutional limitations as to where they can deploy. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army can overwhelm Boko Haram with the “human wave” tactics invented by Marshal Yeh Jiangying but China has not sent troops abroad since 1979. If only we can get the Vietnamese Army to come here, Marshal Vo Nguyen Giap’s boys will teach Boko Haram something about zealotry.
Everything considered however, I think our best bet is to try to convince President Francois Hollande to send in the French Foreign Legion. We know what French weapons can do when we remember the Super Etendard plane and the Exocet ship-killing missile during the Falklands War. The French have a legion specially devoted to foreign intervention. Over the years they have shown much more willingness to intervene in foreign wars than all other Western powers. In Africa alone, the French have intervened at Kolwezi and Shaba [Zaire], Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Libya, Mali and CAR.
President Hollande has already hosted summit meetings on Boko Haram and has even stationed a force in Chad. Oga Jonathan, please go to Paris again. Beg him to send the Foreign Legion to shoot their way from Mubi to Michika to Vintim to Uba to Gwoza to Bama to Abadam, through the Sambisa Forest to Buni Yadi and Ashaka. You should apologise to him that Nigeria opposed French nuclear tests in the Sahara in 1958. Tempt him by showing how Boko Haram threatens French interests. Offer him military bases in Maiduguri and Yola. Promise him that for the next 50 years Nigeria will buy only Peugeot and Citroen cars, only Airbus planes and only French weapons. Offer two oil blocs to Total and promise to pay the cost of his troops’ involvement.
Did I hear someone say “that is a high price for Nigeria to pay”? Tell that to an internally displaced person from Bama and Mubi.